


While We Are Asleep

by felix_felicis33



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Meeting, Angst, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 08:02:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 57,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3282944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felix_felicis33/pseuds/felix_felicis33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rare medical condition that causes unpredictable sleep and lucid dreaming allows people to travel into the dreams of others. Two boys with the condition meet in a dream and form a unique relationship while they are asleep. But with one of them seeking a cure and the other reliant on the escape the dreams provide, everything may just unravel as quickly as it all begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It started with the sense of not quite right. Everything felt all too real, yet at the same time there was a startling wrongness; things that just shouldn’t be. Sometimes these slipped by unnoticed to him, the blips accepted by his subconscious as being normal, while at other times it was as if a big, flashing neon sign was pointing down at these abnormalities, trying to warn him that this wasn’t real. In the early days, he’d never noticed these until it was too late. On his most difficult days, these were what saved him from spiralling into panic and fear. On his good days, these were enough for him to break free.

Today wasn’t a good day.

Sunlight bounced off the roofs of cars as far as the eye could see, the dazzling light causing Kurt to blink and narrow his eyes, squinting against the glare. He needed to find a parking space.

Steering the car down yet another row in the parking lot, he turned his head from side-to-side rapidly, searching for a vacant space. Nothing.  
Despite the large volume of cars choking the seemingly never-ending parking lot, the whole area was almost eerily deserted. This didn’t trouble him though, he was used to being in places as uninhabited as ghost towns. Not that he knew where he was.

As he drove at a crawl down another row of parked cars, he glanced around him through the windows, trying to gather some clues to take a stab at guessing where he might be. Palm trees were planted in strategic intervals throughout the desolate parking lot, the sky was the clear, bright blue of forget-me-nots – the blue of a warm summer’s day – and the air coming through the cracked window was warm. There were no signposts, parking meters, or markings on the road – features that Kurt associated with parking lots. When he reached the end of another full row he suddenly realized what was unusual about all of the parked cars: none of them had license plates.

Out the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of a space between the endless blocks of color that were the back ends of parked cars – all of the cars were parked facing the same direction in an orderly fashion in the exact center of the spaces. He braked and the car came to a stop, the low rumbling of the engine loud in the complete silence of the surrounding area, and examined the space. It was between two small cars – one bottle green, the other cherry red – and was very tight, too tight for his car to fit into. Unbuckling his seatbelt he opened the car door and clambered out. Taking a step back from his car, he glanced between the car and the space, his eyes darting rapidly between the two, as he wondered.

The thought had barely formed in his mind when his car moved. One moment it was crouched on the road beside him, the next it was squeezed into the tight space he had been examining, somehow shrinking down enough to fit between the green and red cars. This would be considered unusual anywhere else, something to marvel at, but here it was a possibility; anything was.

Turning his back on his vehicle he set off along the row of parked cars. It felt a lot shorter walking it than it had done when he had been driving. His footsteps made no sound on the smooth, dark grey, featureless road; the only sound here was his own steady breathing. No singing birds, no breeze rustling through the palm trees, nothing, just a silence so complete that in another place it would seem suppressive, but was just natural here. He didn’t know where he was walking to, just that he had to walk in this direction and that there was no other way for him to go.

A sprawling building rose up out of nowhere in the previously featureless horizon. One moment there was nothing but countless cars to see then, a blink of an eye later, the building was there. Just like the rows of parked cars had suddenly seemed shorter, one second the building was on the horizon, the next it was only several feet in front of him. He paused and tipped his head back to see a façade of dull grey concrete and numerous windows that he instantly recognized – his high school. There was no surprise at seeing it here, no sense of ‘this shouldn’t be here’; he had expected this.

He approached the glass and wood doors and pushed the right-hand one, it swung open soundlessly and he stepped inside. The school’s foyer seemed to form as he looked around: the reception desk to the left of the doors, the wide double doors leading into the hall directly in front of him, the corridors leading to the classrooms off to the left and the right, the noticeboard on the wall just by the right door with several large, colorful, illegible notices and flyers pinned to it. Brushing a rogue strand of hair out of his eyes, Kurt took another step into the entryway and suddenly he wasn’t alone. Faceless students and teachers crossed the foyer walking between the corridors and the front doors, some on their own, others in groups, backpacks slung over their shoulders, and books and files in the arms of several of them. None of them made a sound. The sounds of dozens of footsteps, the squeaking of shoes on the plastic floors, the loud buzzing of many voices interspersed with an occasional shout of laughter, sounds normal in any high school, were absent, and still the only sound was Kurt’s own breathing, except for a faint, almost imperceptible humming.

Like he had known where to go out in the parking lot, he knew where he had to go here. He crossed the foyer, students parting before him like the red sea for Moses.

The layout of his school was exactly as he remembered it and he walked purposefully along corridors and up staircases, his gait smooth and soundless, as if he were gliding. He didn’t know what time it was, but nobody appeared to be in any classes as the corridors and stairwells were packed with students and the faculty members. Doors to all the classrooms were firmly shut, the rooms in absolute darkness through the small, square windows set in the doors and Kurt felt no urge to enter any of them – that was not why he was here.

The crowded corridors inexplicably began to empty when he reached the second floor. One moment he was pushing open the heavy fire doors set partway along the second floor corridor and streams of blurred people were moving soundlessly out of his way, the next he was glancing around blankly, wondering where everyone had gone. Confusion slowly began to settle in like the first snowflakes of winter, drifting almost lazily downwards to land on the ground, gradually building up over time.

The featureless corridor suddenly opened out on his left into a large area like an oversized alcove. A wide window let in generous streams of sunlight which striped in beams across the two rows of low wooden benches in the center of the recess. Banks of shiny, grey metal lockers lined the two walls perpendicular to the window, their brushed metal locks gleaming dully in the sunlight. The nearest beam of sunlight wavered a little as he stepped towards one of the benches, as if it were afraid of him, but it held its ground as he stepped into it. His shadow, dark and elongated, stretched across the floor in front of him as the sun hit his back. It lit the ends of his hair, turning them a golden blond color, but it didn’t warm his back; there was no heat in the bright light.

A loud, clear voice suddenly rang through the alcove and echoed down the corridor. The voice was unfamiliar, male, and was issuing from what Kurt assumed was a PA system, though he couldn’t remember if his school even had one of those and he couldn’t see any speakers. The voice spoke mechanically with no emotion in its tone, announcing the imminent arrival of a tornado and advising everyone to take cover as quickly as possible.

Kurt spun around as the voice stopped and silence fell again. The sunlight was disappearing before his eyes like the sunset was running on fast-forward. The shafts of sunlight glided away from him and when the final one disappeared he ran forwards to the window.

The previously brilliant blue sky was now hidden by swirling, dark grey clouds that hung ominously over the school and as far as the eye could see. The clouds glowered down at him as he watched swirls of purplish-black being whipped into view by the strong wind that had started blowing. Lowering his eyes from the sky he saw the palm trees bending over almost in half with the force of the gale, fronds being ripped from them and flung through the air. The faint humming Kurt had heard earlier grew louder.

Turning away from the window he strode briskly past the lockers and out into the deserted corridor. He marched along it in the direction he had come from earlier until he reached the stairwell where he paused. A tall window spanned the entire height of the stairwell and through it Kurt could see the approaching tornado. The giant, funnel-shaped cloud was made up of a boiling, swirling mass of angry greys, purples, and blacks. Debris was being flung around in it like vegetables in a food blender. The thick clouds surrounding the tornado glowed every now and then with flashes of lightning. Where the tornado touched the ground the earth was being churned up, the concrete of the road torn up and demolished, and the trees were ripped up by the roots.

He stood frozen with awe for a moment, entranced by the sheer force and power of the storm and by the strange beauty of it: the roiling colours, the forking lightning, and the churning clouds. He stared until the storm came close enough for him to make out individual branches of the trees and chunks of concrete being flung mercilessly around by the funnel of cloud, and then he began to run.

He took the stairs three at a time, his feet thundering against the concrete and his hand grabbing at the banister whenever he misjudged a step and his foot slid off the edge, almost sending him sprawling. He didn’t know where he was running to, but he knew he had to go somewhere else; he couldn’t stay by a window or on a staircase.

Jumping the last four steps he landed in a cat-like crouch and sprinted off down the corridor, shoving at the fire door he encountered. The humming had become a dull roar and his breath escaped him in gasping pants. There was still no one else in sight.

Classroom doors stood wide open at random, revealing orderly rows of wooden desks and chairs facing a teacher’s desk at the front of the room instead of the darkness they had previously contained. Through the windows in every room he glanced in, searching fruitlessly for another person, he could see the ever-advancing storm. Impossibly large and dark, it tore towards the school, roaring and growling like some giant beast.

He was racing flat out along the corridor leading to the entrance foyer when he caught a glimpse of overturned desks out the corner of his eye. Skidding to a halt, he backtracked until he was standing in the doorway of a large classroom – one of the English rooms – his English room to be exact. Desks had been overturned, chairs thrown down onto their sides, and loose sheets of paper blew across the carpeted floor in the gusts of wind coming through the partially opened window. Kurt took a cautious step into the room, his eyes frantically searching for the person responsible. Wind blew hair back from his face as the tornado got closer and paper flew through the air, most of it now being ripped out through the rattling window.

Another step and he still couldn’t find the source of the destruction. Loud crashing, banging, shattering, and roaring filled the air – the storm was starting to tear apart everything outside the school, like the untamed beast that it was. There was no more time to run; the school would be hit in the next few seconds.

He dived for the teacher’s desk, the only piece of furniture in the room that hadn’t been toppled, and crouched under it, his hands gripping two of the sturdy legs so hard his knuckles turned white. The horrific sounds of the tornado beast sinking its claws into the school began a split-second after he took shelter under the desk. His heart pounded almost painfully in his chest, his hands shook, and the instinct to run coursed through him, but he gritted his teeth and held his ground; there wasn’t any chance of outrunning the storm.

When the window shattered, he squeezed his eyes shut, pleading for the storm to somehow miss him. He didn’t know who or what he was pleading with – unknown forces? The tornado itself? – but the fear drove him to it. These were the ones he really hated, the ones that induced real fear: hands trembling, heart racing painfully, muscles tensing, stomach churning, and shaky breath sawing out of him.

The sound reached an almost deafening decibel and it was impossible to identify individual noises of destruction; it had just become an ear-splitting, nonsensical roar. The desk moved a little, scraping along the thin carpet, and Kurt gripped at it tighter, the edges of the legs digging painfully into the palms of his hands. It moved again, jerking backwards suddenly, the front of the desk smacking into his side and knocking him over. His eyes flew open as he hit the ground. He scrambled onto his hands and knees and crawled towards the wall of the classroom as the desk continued to scrape heavily along the floor. It smashed against the wall with a crash that was lost in the continual growl of the storm. Debris was smashing into the desks and the walls. It was close; there was no way he was going to make it out of this.

In what he was sure would be the final seconds, he glanced across the classroom through the small gap between the front of a smashed desk and the floor, his gaze skittering and panicky. He didn’t know what made him do it – his body’s last desperate attempt to find an escape route, maybe – the last thing he wanted to see was the tornado tearing and growling its way over to him, a satisfied rumble emitting from it as it eyed up its new prey, but there was some pull that made him turn his head and look across the partially destroyed room. His gaze locked on a pair of wide, hazel-colored eyes.

And then it was over.


	2. Chapter 2

Kurt was exhausted the next morning. Getting up and driving to school passed by him in a haze of tiredness. His grainy, stinging eyes struggled to focus on anything, and he viewed his usual weekday morning routine in a series of blurred snapshots: his phone on the nightstand lit up with the time, toothpaste barely clinging to the bristles of his toothbrush, buttons slipping out of fumbling fingers, the breakfast he barely touched dumped in the trash. It was probably worrying that he’d driven himself to school this morning, but he didn’t have the energy to care.

The artificial lights of the school halls had an odd, lazy blur to them. The off-white floors seemed too bright and the banks of lockers lining the walls had an unusual sharpness to them. Kurt’s heavy head pounded dully from the assault of dozens of raised voices, a starkly unwelcome change from the soft purring of his car’s engine. The thought of the headache brewing in the back of his head was almost enough to make him turn around and head back home to bed. 

Almost.

It took him three attempts to get his locker open, but he didn’t really pay attention to what he was doing the first two times he attempted his combination, his focus slipping away before he’d even selected the first number. The day was going to be a disaster; it always was following a night like last night, when he hadn’t been able to pull himself into wakefulness quick enough.

His best friend Rachel appeared by his side as he was pulling books from his locker. Bubbly, chatty, and endlessly enthusiastic, Rachel was a tiny whirlwind of energy who stopped at nothing to get what she wanted. She used to be the very picture of someone Kurt didn’t want to be around when he’d had a bad night, but Rachel had long since learned the ability to sense when he wanted to talk about one of his bad dreams and when he’d rather sit in silence. He loved her for it.

Rachel took one look at Kurt’s drawn, pale face and his slow, sloppy movements and her face morphed into an expression of quiet understanding. She waited until Kurt had closed his locker before looping an arm through his.

“Let’s go to class,” she said gently.

She guided him down the hall towards their first period English class in a manner reminiscent of someone guiding a blind man. In a sense, he was blind to the typical goings-on in the halls they walked through, his glazed eyes sliding unseeingly over the groups of chattering girls, fist-bumping football players, and laughing band members who were swinging the cases holding their instruments in their hands. His head was a static fuzz of cotton wool, and the sights his eyes landed on got lost in the thick stuffiness.

It was a relief to sit down in their English classroom – weaving through the packed corridors had taken more energy and dexterity than he had at the moment. He allowed himself to slip into a stupor while waiting for class to begin. In the seat next to him, Rachel busied herself with setting her notebooks and pens on her desk. 

As his thoughts drifted away from the classroom, his mind replayed a scene from last night’s dream. The boy with the hazel eyes standing by the doorway of the room he’d been in, his presence enough to jolt Kurt awake as he suddenly became aware that he was dreaming. Those eyes meeting his own had been the unusual feature that had told him this isn’t real, the trigger that had enabled him to wake up.

It wasn’t seeing another person in his dreams that was unusual, it was having a connection with them, a true connection that he felt right through to his bones; he’d never experienced that before. That was how he always woke up from his dreams: he saw something that didn’t seem right, he became consciously aware he was dreaming, and he woke up. The trigger was usually something banal, like an object that had been flipped upside down or warped slightly, something being the wrong colour, or proportions being wrong; it had never been a person before.

“Kurt!”

Starting out of his thoughts, Kurt jerked away from the sharp elbow Rachel had just jabbed into his side. He glared at her, rubbing his ribcage pointedly, but she just nodded her head at the front of the room where their teacher had begun the lecture. 

Hoping he wouldn’t bruise, Kurt opened his notebook and picked up his pen, knowing full well he’d never get away with not paying attention while sitting next to Rachel. She hated it when someone didn’t listen and then had to ask for clarification later; he’d learned that the hard way.

By third period his teachers were starting to notice his inattention. His math teacher, Mrs. Harper, sent him a number of hard, disapproving stares and made a point of calling on him for answers several times. At the end of the lesson while everyone was making to leave, she called to him to wait behind for a moment. Biting back a heavy sigh, Kurt stood by her desk and waited for his classmates to file out of the room. Once they were alone she turned to him with a stern look.

“Mr. Hummel, how do you expect me to do my job and help you get a good education if you don’t pay attention to what I’m trying to teach you?” She peered at him expectantly, her slightly protruding eyes giving her the unpleasant look of some kind of unblinking toad. 

Kurt resisted the urge to pinch his brow with his fingers. “I’m sorry, I just- Last night was difficult.”

He didn’t really expect Mrs. Harper’s expression to soften into understanding and he wasn’t proven wrong.

“Mr. Hummel, I know your…condition may make school a little more challenging some days, but if you put in a bit more effort you can surely manage.” She lowered those unpleasant eyes from his face and began straightening papers on her desk just as her next class started trickling in. “I won’t give you any special treatment – lack of sleep is a poor excuse for substandard effort in the classroom.”

She nodded briskly at Kurt in a manner that told him he was dismissed and he scurried out the door, his feet automatically taking him to his next class.

A lot of people, like Mrs. Harper, didn’t get it. What he suffered from was so rare that most people hadn’t even heard of it and out of the ones who had very few actually understood it. With lack of understanding came severe ignorance: people thinking his only problem was he was tired a little more than the average person, and the tiredness was perfectly manageable – just have a cup of coffee and he’d be good to go, right?

Wrong.

With a soft sigh, Kurt massaged his temples, trying to alleviate some of the tightness and stuffiness in his head. He was starting to wish he’d taken the easy option and stayed at home today. If only he wasn’t worried about falling asleep…

“Dude, are you okay?” Sam asked when Kurt dropped into the seat next to him, immediately closing his eyes. “You look kinda pale – more so than you normally do.”

“I’m fine; just tired,” Kurt assured him. He kept his eyes closed, the darkness soothing.

“Oh.” Sam was quiet for a moment and Kurt knew without having to open his eyes that his friend was trying to think of the best way to respond. He knew Kurt hated suggestions that he go home and sleep and he wasn’t a fan of sympathy, either. Neither of those were of any help to him.

“That sucks, man,” Sam said eventually. 

Kurt hummed noncommittally in response. He heard the rustle of paper next to him and guessed the lesson was about to start, but he didn’t open his eyes; he was in no hurry to have the bright lights and colors assault them again. He allowed himself a few more seconds of peace, before opening his eyes and getting ready for the lesson. If there was one thing he couldn’t do in class, it was fall asleep.

The rest of the school day dragged on and Kurt was glad when it finally ended. He wanted to go home, lie on his bed, and rest his eyes. At this point he didn’t even care if he ended up falling asleep; he’d take the risk of seeing that boy with the hazel eyes again. He was so damn tired.

His step-mom, Carole, was in the living room when he arrived home, watching some chat show on TV. She looked up from her program when he walked through the front door and immediately muted the TV.

“Kurt, honey, what’s wrong?” She shifted on the couch to get a better look at him. “Did something happen at school today?” Her forehead creased in a concerned frown and her voice was tinged with worry. 

Despite only marrying his father six months ago, she treated Kurt as if he were her own son and they were close to the point where Kurt felt comfortable telling her almost anything. Carole wasn’t a replacement for the mom he lost in a car accident when he was eight, and she wasn’t trying to be, but she was a fantastic step-mom and a good friend to him. In spite of this, he still hesitated before telling her the truth.

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” he admitted. “It wasn’t a particularly pleasant dream – it was verging on a nightmare, really – and it took me a while to break out of it.” 

Carole’s eyes filled with understanding, while the concerned frown lines on her forehead deepened. When Kurt had told her about his condition back when she and his dad had been engaged, she had taken it upon herself to learn all about it, reading up on the history and physiology of the condition, the sleep disturbances and other symptoms it caused, and all of the latest research and potential treatments. Sometimes, Kurt wondered if she understood it all better than he did. But with all of this understanding and knowledge came the suggestions of doctor’s visits and enrolment in clinical trials for possible new therapies. Kurt knew she meant well, but he couldn’t help but dread conversation about his condition with her.

Hoping to head her off before she could reel him into a discussion about whatever new article she’d read, Kurt shrugged nonchalantly. 

"It’s no big deal. I’m just a little tired, that’s all.” He took his satchel off his shoulder and set it down on the floor. “I’m used to it.” 

Carole didn’t look convinced by his blasé attitude. “You look ill with it,” she said. “You’re so pale.”

Kurt forced a smile. “I’m fine. Like I said, I’m used to it.”

He headed into the kitchen to grab a drink of water and held back a resigned sigh when he heard Carole following him.

“I know you don’t like seeing doctors about this, but this isn’t healthy, Kurt; you can’t go on like this.”

Kurt took his time opening the fridge and taking out a bottle of water, allowing the snappy retort that had sprung to the tip of his tongue to sink back down his throat. Carole didn’t deserve an angry, argumentative response even if this wasn’t the first time she’d said this to him and he was sick of hearing it. He knew she meant well and had his best interests at heart, but she just didn’t see this from his point of view.

He could sense Carole’s hesitation; could almost feel her confliction in the air. He unscrewed the cap on the bottle slowly and took a sip of water.

“Maybe you could visit a doctor again,” she suggested tentatively. “There have been some positive results for this new medication-”

Sucking in a sharp breath, Kurt spun around to face her. Some water splashed out of the bottle and landed on the side of his hand where it began dripping down his wrist. “I don’t want to see another doctor,” he said tersely. He was sick of going round and round in circles with doctors. When Carole opened her mouth to speak again, Kurt gave her a small apologetic smile. “None of those treatments work. This is just something I have to live with.”

He’d accepted this fact a long time ago, back when he’d been a skinny nine-year-old with grazed knees sitting at the office of yet another doctor who was about to tell him that there was no treatment option for him. He’d tried numerous drugs, from sleeping pills to experimental medicines that attempted to reduce the activation of the brain’s parietal lobe during sleep to decrease the relay of sensory information. None of these had helped. He’d accepted that he was going to have these dreams for the rest of his life and he knew other people living with the condition had, too, but still his dad, Carole, and some other sufferers were determined an elusive treatment would be found.

Carole deflated visibly, her shoulders slumping and the tiny spark of hope dimming in her eyes. “Okay,” she said in a small voice. “It was just a thought.” She bit her lip, gazing at him sadly for a moment. “I just hate seeing you like this.”

Guilt crept through Kurt, making his insides feel shrivelled up. He had tried going to doctor’s visits and taking medicines to appease his family, but the deceit made him feel just as bad as the guilt at turning down their offers to help. He couldn’t go back to doing that again, no matter how bad he felt saying no to Carole now.

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, meeting and holding his step-mom’s gaze. “I know you’re only trying to help, but I couldn’t stand going back to that cycle of testing and failing with doctors and drugs. I’d rather have the dreams.”

Carole still looked uncertain, her brow still furrowed with concern, but she nodded all the same.

Taking a step backwards, Kurt waved a hand in the direction of the stairs. “I’m gonna go start my homework.”

At Carole’s acknowledging nod and smile, he fled the kitchen and headed up to his room, scooping up his bag on the way. He feebly hoped putting a floor between himself and his step-mom would alleviate his guilt. When he was inside his room he tossed his satchel on the floor and threw himself down onto his bed.

Kurt’s room, like that of most teenagers his age, showed evidence of his favorite music artists, his path through high school, and his social life. CDs were lined on shelves above stacked textbooks, framed photographs of his friends and family were displayed beside trinkets he’d accumulated over the years, and the usual collection of electronic gadgets were scattered throughout the room. What separated Kurt’s room from that of most teenage boys were the Broadway playbills, jars of moisturising creams, and pile of Vogue magazines. The final thing that made his room unique among most others was the evidence of his condition: the tried and tested treatments and therapies that he’d abandoned after no improvement: sleep masks, aromatherapy oils, CDs of relaxing music, and one or two herbal remedies. Right then he was almost desperate enough for a peaceful sleep to re-try some of them.

Had he not been so tired he would have noted that this was the first time in a long while that he was desperate for a dreamless sleep. Usually he liked having the dreams, though he would never admit it to anyone. There was one main reason for this: bullies.

A sharp clanging and a goading sneer carried clearly over the dull roar of many students in one of McKinley High School’s main hallways the next morning as Kurt was shoved roughly into a bank of lockers. Only one or two people passing by spared Kurt a glance as he stood slumped against the locker, clutching at the arm that had smacked against the metal and wincing, everyone else ignored it as they did with other such daily occurrences, such as the cafeteria staff clearing away dirty trays, the janitor mopping the floors, and the front office staff talking on the phone. Kurt squeezed his eyes shut and winced again as a bolt of pain shot through his elbow. If only his tormentors would ignore him like that.

Triumphant laughter and the slap of several high-fives moved along the corridor away from Kurt as he stood there waiting for the spasms of pain to ease. When the pain had receded somewhat he opened his eyes and pushed himself off the locker he was leaning against. He tugged up the sleeve of his sweater to check the damage and sighed – his elbow looked slightly red from impact and felt tender; there would definitely be a bruise later. Annoyed, Kurt yanked his sleeve back down. Add that to the two blotchy purple marks on his back and that was his third bruise this week, and it was only Wednesday. Mentally reminding himself that it would soon be summer and then he’d only have one more year left in school, Kurt picked up the books he’d dropped and went to his next class. 

Despite his best efforts, counting down the time remaining until he could escape McKinley High wasn’t enough to get him out of bed and to school each day. Friends, Glee club, and his ‘I will survive’ attitude could only help so much, and on some days, when homophobic bullying and complete indifference from nearly all students and staff was rampant, it wasn’t enough to keep him from hating his life. 

It was times like this when he liked his condition. He liked the escape the dreams provided, the freeing sense of being in a world that didn’t judge him for being who he was. Sometimes, he wished he would stay in the dreams for days, or – rather wildly on particularly bad days – forever. He didn’t really mean such thoughts – he would miss his friends and family too much to stay in dreamworld – but when the bruises were still throbbing and the slurs were still ringing in his ears, it was a nice thought.

~ * ~

Jiggling his leg in a fit of nervous energy, Blaine frowned across the waiting room at the cork board plastered with medical alert notices and information posters. Somewhere in the row of chairs to his left an elderly gentleman coughed hoarsely and he found himself inadvertently hoping the man didn’t have anything contagious. With his massive school workload, an upcoming piano recital, and a performance at a local charity event coming up, the last thing he needed was to get sick. 

He checked the time on his watch and his apprehension increased when he saw his appointment time had just ticked by. His doctor was running a little behind schedule, but he had expected that; she was busy. It did give him more time to stew over his concerns about his last dream. This wasn’t a good thing.

Leaning forwards to rest his elbows on his knees, Blaine sighed softly. He just didn’t know what would be the best thing to do. He could see pros and cons to both options and he didn’t know which way the balance swung more favorably. 

As he sat there, his mind bouncing backwards and forwards between the two options, the face of the boy he’d seen in his dream appeared in his head. Pale skin, thick brown hair, and blue eyes, the boy had shocked Blaine into waking up when their eyes had met. Blaine had never seen anyone like him before which could only mean one thing: he had travelled for the first time last night.

In a normal dream every face seen was one which the dreamer had seen before at some time in their lives – the brain couldn’t create completely new people. And it wasn’t just the boy’s unfamiliar appearance that had alerted Blaine that this was something different, it was the fact that the boy had seen him, too; they had connected. In people with his condition, oneironauts, seeing someone in your dreams that you had never seen in your life meant you were travelling. It was fairly common in people with this condition; they not only dreamed lucidly, they were able to share dreams with other oneironauts, to travel into their dreams. That’s why they were known as dream travellers. 

While travelling was something most oneironauts experienced, it tended not to occur immediately after diagnosis; which was why, in his four years of having the condition, this had been Blaine’s first time experiencing it. He wasn’t all too sure how he felt about it, really. Though he didn’t particularly believe dreams were symbolism for his struggles or what was happening in his life, he still thought having someone else in his dream was an invasion of privacy. He was unintentionally sharing the same dreamworld with a stranger while asleep and vulnerable; it was unsettling. And it was whether or not to share his first travelling experience with his doctor that had him conflicted.

Blaine chewed indecisively on the inside of his cheek where the flesh was already raw and slightly ragged. He knew telling his doctor would probably alter the treatments they were trying and would possibly lead to her asking him to spend another night or two in the sleep laboratory so they could measure his brain activity while he travelled – it would be a great research opportunity for her. But he also wanted to keep this private. There was something about the boy he’d seen in his dream, something about the way he’d felt when their eyes had met that made him want to keep it to himself. Then there was the fact that the dream wasn’t purely his, he’d shared it with the blue-eyed boy – shouldn’t he get a say in this? It didn’t feel right to invite a doctor to study someone else’s private dream.

Blaine was stirred out of his thoughts by the doctor calling his name.

“Sorry for the wait,” Dr. Lewis said, showing Blaine into her office. “We’ve been flat-out all day and I had to fit in an emergency earlier…” She sat down at her desk, indicating for Blaine to sit down opposite her. “Anyway,” she smiled warmly at Blaine, “how have you been since we last saw each other?”

“I-” Blaine shifted in his seat, thoughts of the boy from his dream still lingering at the forefront of his mind. “Good.” He paused, collecting himself and trying to remember what all had happened since his last appointment. “I don’t think those new pills are helping.”

“Hmm.” Dr. Lewis scanned the notes on her computer screen for a moment. “There’s been no change in the frequency, length, or lucidity of your dreams at all?”

Blaine shook his head. “Not that I’ve noticed, no.”

Dr. Lewis made a note on her computer. “And what about the music? Has it altered your dreams at all?”

Along with a new medication supposed to alter the activity of the brain during sleep, Blaine had been playing a CD of specially selected, relaxing music while he slept that was supposed to influence what he dreamt about. By combining the two, Dr. Lewis had hoped to change Blaine’s dreams to ones that were less vivid and more similar to what was considered a “normal” dream. Blaine had been dutifully taking the pills and playing the music every night for over three weeks now and had seen no difference. Yet another failed effort at treating, or at least controlling, his condition.

He shook his head again. “It didn’t make any difference: my dreams were just the same as always,” he replied.

Dr. Lewis turned away from her computer to look at him intently. “And you didn’t notice any change in the subject matter or atmosphere of the dreams? No patterns or links to the music?” she asked.

Other than the presence of someone else in his latest dream there had been nothing, and Blaine had finally decided to keep the travelling to himself for now. Telling his doctor just felt wrong.

He shook his head for the third time. “Nothing.”

Dr. Lewis looked mildly disappointed, but she hid her feelings quickly and wrote up a few more notes, the computer keys tapping loudly in the otherwise silent room.

Blaine couldn’t even bring himself to feel sorry for denying Dr. Lewis the opportunity to perform research on the dream travelling phenomenon, he was far too relieved that his inherent nature to please everyone hadn’t made him reveal something he would much rather keep private. He had avoided himself and another teenage boy dealing with the same condition being guinea pigs in experiments that would be detailed in research papers and that was far more important to him than making his doctor happy.

He settled more comfortably in his seat as the remaining vestiges of nervous tension left him.

Dr. Lewis frowned at him contemplatively, her left elbow resting on the desk and index finger tapping rhythmically against her mouth. “We have two ways we can go from here, Blaine,” she began, speaking in slow, ruminative tones. “We can continue with the combination therapy of medication and music that you’re on – results from clinical trials show that it can take up to eight weeks for effects to be seen – or we can discontinue that particular therapy and keep an eye on these new therapies being trialled and see if we can give any of those a go.” She lowered her hand from her mouth and looked questioningly at Blaine. “What do you think?”

Blaine didn’t have to think about it, he’d known what he’d wanted to do before he’d arrived at the clinic. “I think I’d like to take a break from therapy for the moment.”

Dr. Lewis nodded and made another note on the computer. “Okay, that’s fine. You can dispose of any pills you have remaining at a pharmacy and I’ll keep watching these ongoing trials and let you know if anything is worth trying, alright?”

“Okay.” Knowing the appointment was over, Blaine got to his feet. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“You’re welcome.” Dr. Lewis smiled at him. “I’ll be in touch.”

Feeling light and liberated now that he was free from medication and restraining therapies, Blaine all but skipped out of the clinic and into his car. For someone who had been tirelessly seeking an effective treatment for his condition with hopes for an eventual cure, it should be odd that he was so happy to put some distance between himself and therapy, but he didn’t care; he had other things on his mind now. He wanted to travel again, and he wanted to see the blue-eyed boy again.


	3. Chapter 3

Blaine was barely in the front door before his mom pounced.

“How was your appointment?” she asked, her eyes searching his as he dumped his car keys on the little table by the door. “Blaine…” she chastised, her gaze switching to stare pointedly at his keys. 

With a sigh Blaine picked them back up and put them inside a little wooden box his mom had bought a few months earlier as a nicer alternative to the jumbled dumping ground that had used to sit upon the table. Blaine thought it was silly to put essentials like keys in a box from which he would only have to untangle them the next morning; his mom disagreed.

His mom smiled when he closed the lid on the box. “How was your appointment?” she repeated.

Blaine hesitated a second. “It was a bit of a mixed bag, I guess.” He took a few small steps away from the door, wanting to move out of the entrance way, but feeling trapped there by his mother’s intense stare.

“What do you mean?” she asked quickly, jumping in before Blaine had a chance to explain.

“Dr. Lewis and I both felt it was best we discontinue my current therapy,” he said delicately, feeling rather like he was tip-toeing around a sensitive landmine. “I didn’t think it was helping any and she agreed.”

His mom frowned. “You never told me it wasn’t working.”

“I didn’t want to say anything until I’d spoken with Dr. Lewis. I didn’t know if I’d been doing it long enough to see any effects.”

Raising an eyebrow, his mom looked at him shrewdly. “And had you?”

“I- Yes,” Blaine lied. He swallowed down the tremor in his voice. “Yes – Dr. Lewis doesn’t believe continuing it for longer would be of any benefit.” He shrugged nonchalantly, hoping his mom wouldn’t cling on to the failed therapy and start researching and calling up doctors and uncovering his little white lie.

He didn’t like lying to his parents, or anyone for that matter, and as a result it was something he was terrible at. He also had very expressive eyes that managed to give away everything he was feeling even when he didn’t particularly feel like sharing. Despite all of this, he’d still had to lie to his mom about the therapy. If she knew that he should have really continued it for another month to see any potential benefit, she would have demanded he go back on the treatment. His excuse of wanting a break from testing treatments wouldn’t be acceptable, either.

To his relief, his mom didn’t press the issue. Instead, she sighed, looking a little disappointed. “So what’s the good news?”

Blaine forced a smile. “There are a few trials finishing soon that Dr. Lewis thinks look promising. As soon as any publish hopeful results, she says she’ll get me on the treatment,” he said, trying to inject as much enthusiasm into his voice as he could. 

His mom only looked thoughtful. “Maybe that’s what we should go back to: trials,” she murmured slowly. “I know they’re a bit of a hassle, but it may be where you get the treatment you need.”

Before Blaine could say anything in response she wandered off, no doubt heading for the computer to look up any recruiting clinical trials she could sign him up for.

With an exasperated sigh, Blaine climbed the stairs to his room, valiantly hoping there weren’t any suitable trials currently recruiting patients. He knew his hope was wishful as oneironautics was such a hot topic in medical research at the moment, but he couldn’t help but cling to the feeling, holding it in a tight grasp along with the memories of his tornado dream from the other night and the boy he’d seen in it.

He nudged his bedroom door closed behind him and made a beeline for his nightstand, wrinkling his nose at the remnants of failed therapies that were scattered throughout the room. He tugged open the top drawer of the little wooden cabinet and grabbed a box of pills sitting on top of a smattering of bits-and-bobs he had tossed in there over the years. With a feeling of immense relief and satisfaction, he strode over to his closet and dumped the pills in a half-full tub of tried-and-tested medication. He shoved the tub back in its spot on the top shelf. The CD of relaxing music went straight in the trash.

Yawning, Blaine sat down at his desk and tried to get started on his homework, but frequently found himself staring sightlessly across the room, pen tipping in his slack hand, his thoughts back on travelling. 

He’d known travelling would be a likely scenario for him based on the statistic he’d been told and which his parents had fretted over, but he’d still never really thought he’d experience it. He’d given it a bit of thought over the years: wondering what it would be like, imagining the person he’d share a dream with – but it had still seemed akin to pondering what it would be like to meet a celebrity. It was nice and slightly scary to think about, but he hadn’t expected it to go beyond thoughts. He was glad it had; it had been interesting to say the least.

His parents, he knew, wouldn’t feel the same way.

Since the day Blaine had been diagnosed they had been searching for a cure. They had taken Blaine to doctor’s appointments all over the state and further afield, they’d made him go on dozens of different treatment regimens, and registered him on numerous clinical trials. When he was younger he had complained; he hadn’t understood that anything was wrong with him and he had found all of the appointments boring, hating that they took up time he could have been using to play games or practice the piano. As he had gotten older he had started to understand his condition and had quickly picked up his parents’ view on it: scared and desperately wishing to be normal. From then on he had no longer minded the inconvenient treatments or regularly being poked and prodded by doctors; he had wanted to get better.

He knew his parents would be terrified if they found out he had travelled, his mom in particular. He knew it would spur a frenzy of appointments and scans and sleep EEGs. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want the hectic battle of trying to fit schoolwork and a normal life around the medical stuff. He didn’t want to go back to sharing his parents’ mind-set: to being too scared to sleep, to sleepless nights and drinking endless amounts of coffee, to setting alarms so he only slept in short bursts and avoided dreaming, to sitting hunched over in the most uncomfortable position he could while listening to loud music and working on essays for school. Anything not to sleep long enough to dream.

His parents had a perfectly valid reason for being scared and the same fear still lingered in the back of Blaine’s mind, a nagging worry that burst to the surface every now and then, leaving him chewing the inside of his cheek and wondering if he was doing the right thing by keeping the travelling a secret. For oneironauts, it was always a possibility that they could enter a dream and not wake up from it for days, weeks, even months. In one or two cases the dreamers had stayed asleep for several years in what doctors referred to as dream comas. So far, nothing that doctors had tried had been successful at waking someone from one of these comas; they had only woken up by themselves. This all pointed to the possibility that, theoretically, he could fall asleep, enter a dream, and never wake up again. The thought alone had been enough to keep him from sleeping for three days.

Inhaling sharply through his nose, Blaine sat up straighter in his chair and tried to return his focus back to his schoolwork. Despite several cups of coffee and a determined attitude, he’d still struggled to keep up in all of his classes today, his head heavy and foggy from lack of sleep. He needed to catch up; the last thing he wanted was for his grades to drop because he dreamed a little differently to most people. He didn’t want his sleeping habits to interfere with his chances of getting into a good college to study music.

At the thought of college, his mind spun to something that had plagued him since the school and his parents had first brought the subject up: how to manage his condition at college. He wasn’t sure how he would succeed at college with such an erratic sleeping pattern. He knew whichever college he went to would support him and make special arrangements as necessary, but he’d heard the stories of fellow oneironauts dropping out of school when it all became too difficult to handle. This was one of his and his parents’ greatest fears and the main reason they were pushing to get treatment or a cure for him.

Tapping his pen against the textbook laying open in front of him and frowning indecisively down at the pages, Blaine wondered, yet again, if he was doing the right thing by not mentioning the travelling to anyone. His mind flashed back to startled blue eyes widened in panic and the spark of some kind of connection zipping through the air. 

Yes, he decided, focusing upon his schoolwork once more, he was doing the right thing.

Another three nights passed before Blaine dreamed lucidly again. Oneironauts didn’t have fully immersive, lucid dreams every time they slept; instead, it tended to happen about four or five nights a week. On these other nights, they experienced a soothing, shifting mix of colours and shapes with a more physiological brain activity. Doctors believed this to be the body’s defensive measure against the condition to enable survival, and were fascinated by the implications of the ratio between lucid dreaming and what they called restorative dreaming. Blaine didn’t care too much about the science behind it; he just liked it because it gave him a good night’s sleep.

In his next lucid dream Blaine found himself standing in the narrow, cobbled street of what appeared to be an old European town. From the architecture and layout of the town, he guessed it was somewhere in Italy, like the little villages near Rome that he’d visited with his parents when he was thirteen. The buildings on either side of the short, alley-like street he was standing in were crooked and intersected by twisting dark green tendrils of ivy, leaning in towards each other so the sunlight formed a jagged stripe down the centre of the road. The sky above Blaine was periwinkle blue and the air felt neither hot nor cold; it just was.

Wanting to see more of the place he was in, Blaine walked along the street, following the curve of the walls on either side of him towards the brightness at the mouth of the alley. Though the sunlight was brighter at the end of the street, it didn’t bother his eyes any and he didn’t feel the need to squint or shield his eyes. The light brightened further and then he stepped out into a large, square courtyard. 

Like the street he’d just emerged from, the courtyard was cobbled. The uneven stones glowed under the sun in a multitude of colours, from warm reds to bright golds. Blaine paused at the mouth of the street, running his gaze over the buildings lining the perimeter of the courtyard: some appeared to be businesses and shops of a sort, while others had no obvious use. They were all made from the same sort of stone which was a soft golden colour. Flower boxes decorated some of the windows, adding vibrant bursts of color here and there.

A number of people were hurrying about the square, all of them dressed in fashions from another century. They were all faceless; as meaningless to him as he was to them. They all ignored him as he slowly made his way further into the courtyard, his gaze still sweeping over the surrounding buildings. Despite not paying attention to where he was going, nobody bumped into him, the slightly blurry crowds parting in front of him no matter which way he turned. 

Slowly, Blaine became aware of a persistent ticking sound. Once he did notice its presence, it got louder, until he couldn’t help but hear it. At first he didn’t think anything of the ticking noise – sometimes there were sounds that didn’t have any source or any real meaning, they were just there – but then his eyes landed upon a tall clock tower looking down over the courtyard from the far end and suddenly it became apparent to him that the ticking was from the clock and it was counting down to something. Ordinarily, this would have concerned Blaine, but as he studied the large white face of the clock and the burnished red tiles of the steeple roof, he didn’t think anything of the ticking noise; it just was.

Moving deeper into the courtyard and closer to the clock tower, Blaine started to feel something, the presence of a sensation that had not been there earlier. The feeling got stronger the closer he got to the clock until it became strong enough that he could begin to recognise it for what it was: a prickling realisation that he needed to do something.

Turning, Blaine’s eyes alighted upon someone walking away from him, a man with brown hair who was wearing a navy short sleeved shirt. For some reason he felt a pull towards this man, a calling that he should follow him. Without questioning it, Blaine started after him, crossing the courtyard to another one of the narrow streets leading off it.

By the time Blaine reached the street, the man he’d been following was nowhere in sight. He made his way further along the street and emerged in a brightly lit, modern day classroom. He stopped just inside the entrance. 

The room looked like the classrooms he remembered from his elementary school days minus the highly coloured posters and pictures covering the walls. The small, white, plastic-topped desks were arranged in a horseshoe shape in the centre of the room, all of them facing a blank white wall. Around half a dozen people were already sitting at the desks and, unlike the faceless people from the courtyard, they each had the face of one of his classmates from elementary school. Blaine wasn’t surprised or confused by this; he didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary. 

The only other person in the room not sitting down was the man he had followed here. He was standing a little in front of Blaine with his back to him. Blaine took a step closer to him and the man turned.

It was the teenage boy from the tornado dream; the traveller he had shared his dream with.

Shock flooded Blaine, freezing his muscles so he was rooted to the spot. He felt a sharp, tugging sensation somewhere deep in his abdomen, but it was almost immediately overwhelmed by something deeper and stronger that kept him standing in that classroom staring wide-eyed at the boy from his dream.

The boy was clearly experiencing the same emotions and sensations Blaine was, for he gaped silently at Blaine for a long moment, his lips parted in surprise. His eyes were bluer than Blaine remembered, his skin paler and smoother, and his shoulders wider. 

Making a decision, Blaine cleared his throat. “H- Hi.” He did his best to smile warmly, aware his body was trembling and his muscles didn’t seem to be working properly.

The boy continued to stare at him, the shock in his eyes slowly being replaced by something else.

“My name is Blaine,” Blaine introduced hesitantly. He wasn’t sure what the etiquette was for people in this situation: did they become friendly and enjoy the time together or did they politely look the other way and allow the other person to dream in private?

The emotion in the boy’s eyes coalesced into uncertainty and his gaze flicked to something behind Blaine, before shifting to the horseshoe of desks to their right. Beginning to feel unsure of himself, Blaine took another step closer.

The boy’s eyes widened again and he darted around Blaine, ignoring his protest and sprinting down the street they had just walked along, before vanishing.

~ * ~

Kurt woke as abruptly as though his alarm had gone off. For a confused moment, he thought it had done and he started to reach for his phone, until his senses caught up with his brain and he realized his room was still in complete darkness with not even the faintest of dawn light outlining his window. Heart still racing, he settled back down against the pillows and tried to relax enough to fall asleep again.

The remnants of his dream still clung to him. He imagined he could hear the ticking of the clock and see the outline of the old buildings through the shadowy darkness of his room. In his mind’s eye he could still see the unfamiliar faces of the children sitting in the classroom and he felt a ghost of the tugging sensation of his body trying to wake him up, the unfamiliarity making his dream-self consciously understand he was dreaming, thus ending the dream. His slowing heart rate picked up the pace again when he remembered the hazel-eyed boy, the other traveller. He had spoken to him, introduced himself (Blaine, his name was Blaine), had wanted to talk to Kurt and yet, for some reason Kurt hadn’t been able to reply. For some reason, despite his curiosity towards Blaine, he’d been so shocked that Blaine had spoken to him that he’d run away. He hadn’t even made it back into the courtyard before waking up.

Kurt rubbed at his burning eyes – waking up in the middle of a dream always made his eyes sting and left him feeling wrong-footed. He knew he should try and put the dream behind him and go back to sleep as trying to analyze everything while feeling this way would only make him feel worse, but he couldn’t stop his mind from replaying Blaine’s hopeful expression and he could still hear the sound of that damn clock ticking. He couldn’t help but feel he had just screwed up something important. He had that same sinking feeling that he experienced whenever he walked out of an exam and heard everyone around him discussing answers different to his own. Why had he been so stupid?  
Knowing he had little chance of falling asleep now, he sat up in bed, moving until he was sitting on the edge of the mattress where he could rest his feet on the bed frame. There he stared unseeingly at the wall opposite him, thinking.

He’d known it was possible to communicate with those you shared a dream with. From what he’d heard from other travellers, you could interact normally with the other person in your dreams. When he’d been a little younger and fascinated by the thought of meeting someone in his dreams, he’d read everything about travelling that he could find online: every article, blog post, and research paper he came across. Back then he’d thought it would be so cool to have a friend to spend time with while he slept. As travellers seemed to be drawn to share dreams with people who shared a similar mind (experiences, personality, and opinions), and were, thus, of a similar age, twelve-year-old Kurt had been sure he would become good friends with whoever he shared a dream with. He’d learned a lot since then and his fantasy of having a friend in his dreams had dimmed somewhat. Quite often travellers didn’t want to get to know each other or would rather have privacy in their dreams, some fought and started dreading sharing a dream with that person again, and the vast majority never shared dream with the same person often enough to get to know them. From this he knew it was uncommon that he had shared a dream with Blaine on the only two occasions he’d travelled and he also knew this meant it was highly likely he would continue to share dreams with Blaine. The thought made Kurt’s heart stutter.

Another fact he remembered from his research was that emotions were often skewed in dreams and it was sometimes difficult to remember things outside of the dream unless there was a strong emotional attachment to it, like family, stress, and tragedy. He’d heard of a few instances where this had caught people out, causing problems in the lives of themselves or their fellow traveller. He didn’t want to become one of those people where the line between dreams and reality was blurred.

Sighing, Kurt dropped his head into his hands and buried his fingers in his hair. While he’d been thinking the sun had just started to rise, a faint light now glowing around the edges of the curtains. The shadows in his room were more pronounced, the outlines of his furniture sharper. Distantly, he could hear what sounded like every bird in the world singing, their songs getting louder the longer he sat there and thought. It was a soothing sound; a reminder that no matter what happened in his dreams, everything stayed the same in reality: the sun would always rise, the birds would always sing. It was a reminder that a fresh start was always possible. 

One thought he couldn’t help but dwell on was the torment he was subjected to at the hands of the bullies at school – what would happen if Blaine shared the same views as they did? What if Blaine was just as ignorant, spiteful, and homophobic as his classmates? Dreaming was supposed to be his sanctuary, his escape; he couldn’t risk losing that. 

Shaking his head, Kurt dropped his hands from his face and watched the sunlight around the edge of his curtains brighten. He was probably overcomplicating things. After all, he’d only travelled twice and Blaine seemed friendly enough – what was the harm in getting to know him?


	4. Chapter 4

“You look like hell, kid.”

Kurt swallowed a mouthful of coffee and looked up to meet his dad’s concerned gaze. He wished there were better ways to hide his tiredness from his dad, because no brightening moisturisers or anti-fatigue under-eye concealers could completely disguise his bad night. 

He hadn’t been able to sleep again. He had stayed awake, sitting on the edge of the bed and thinking while the sun had slowly risen, his room had steadily lightened, and the birdsong had quietened to the occasional chirp. He knew he looked bad. His eyes had been bloodshot and his face pale when he’d finally gotten up and took a look at himself in the mirror. He had splashed some water on his face, but had been too tired and preoccupied to care enough to attempt to conceal the dark circles shadowing his eyes and the dull complexion of his skin. Even picking out a fashionable outfit for the day had been too much for him; instead, he’d thrown on whatever comfortable clothes he could find before roughly styling his hair. He was just glad it was the weekend and he didn’t feel obligated to put in an effort. Of course, he’d known this would set off alarm bells in his dad’s head, but there was nothing he could do about it.

His dad stayed silent as he made himself some breakfast, but Kurt could almost hear the thoughts circling inside his head, all of them worrying about Kurt and his health. There was nothing Kurt could say to ease these worries, so he steadily drank his way through a strong cup of coffee and waited for his dad to speak. After a few minutes, Burt Hummel sat down opposite Kurt and fixed him with a worried frown. 

“I know you said you don’t want to – but maybe you should go see a doctor again. It’s been a while since your last visit – maybe there’s a new treatment that helps.”

Kurt drained the last of his coffee and sighed. “There’s nothing new – nothing that works, at least – and you know that.” He wished he could give a different answer; wished he could relieve his family of the worry over his health and wellbeing.

His dad absently stirred his bowl of cereal, his brow still furrowed in worry, his gaze once again running over Kurt’s unusually dishevelled appearance. “I just worry about how this is affecting your health,” he said. “It can’t be good for you running on such little sleep all the time, and they don’t really know how that could affect you in the long-term.”

‘They’ were the doctors and scientists focusing their research on oneironautics, trying to understand the condition and to find a treatment for it. So far, little distance had been made in the attempt to find a treatment and results had only been a little better for understanding the condition. The condition had only started being diagnosed properly fairly recently and, as such, studies on the long-term implications had not yet been completed. From his dad and Carole’s rigorous searches through the internet, Kurt knew that doctors were only guessing at the long-term effects by comparing it to insomnia, though the conditions were vastly different. If those guesses were correct, however, then he was looking forward to having a greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cognitive problems. He could see why his dad was so worried. He personally tried not to think about it.

“I only want what’s best for you, Kurt,” his dad continued, giving Kurt an imploring look across the table, the way he had done back when he’d last convinced him to see a doctor. “You know that, right?” 

Pushing down the small, wavering urge to give in to his dad’s wishes, Kurt stood up to make himself another cup of coffee, hoping to wash down his frustrations and doubts over the issue with some more caffeine. Behind him, he heard his dad shift in his seat.

“Carole mentioned you turned down her suggestion to talk to a doctor about a new medication the other day.”

Keeping his gaze fixed on the mug steadily filling with coffee, Kurt gave him the same response he’d given Carole. “I don’t want to return to being in an endless cycle of testing different new drugs that fail each time. I’ve accepted that I have to live with my condition for now, and I would like your and Carole’s support in this.” Mug now full, he picked up his coffee and carried it back to the kitchen table. “I know you both mean well and I appreciate your concern, but I’ve made my decision.”

His dad nodded, his expression softening to one of resignation. “I just worry about you being tired while driving and going to school and doing exams and stuff. It scares me how this makes you look and act sometimes, Kurt; like a friggin’ zombie.”

Kurt watched the coffee swirl in his mug for a moment, sorting through the thoughts in his head. “If they find a treatment that has been shown to be effective, then I’ll go and see a doctor and take it, but until then I’d rather just live like this. I don’t want to spend my life as a guinea pig.”

His dad waited until he’d looked up and met his eyes before responding.

“You know I’ll support whatever decision you make,” he said sincerely. “I just can’t help but worry.” He gave Kurt a small smile. “I’m your dad, that’s my job.”

Kurt returned his smile, feeling grateful that he had a parent who was supportive like this instead of one who thought every big decision their child made was wrong and they always knew what was best for them. 

“Thanks, Dad.”

Silence fell over the kitchen, but it was comfortable, unlike the stilted pauses from earlier. His dad finished his breakfast while Kurt drank his coffee and waited for the caffeine to kick in. As gratitude for his father continued to fill him, Kurt’s thoughts returned to the subject that had been preoccupying him for days now. It suddenly felt right to tell his dad about travelling and Blaine. Keeping something as big as that from his dad had never sat comfortably with him and now that his main reason for keeping it to himself was no longer an issue, he didn’t see the point in not telling him. The problem was how to word it without making him worry again, right as he was starting to feel better about his condition. 

In the end, Kurt decided there was no real way to break the news gently. He cupped his coffee mug with his hands, drawing comforting strength from its warmth. “Dad, I’ve got something to tell you about my condition.” 

His dad’s face immediately paled, the skin around his eyes tightening with worry once again. Kurt quickly backtracked. “It’s nothing bad – I promise! It’s-” He hesitated for a bit, unsure exactly what it was. “It’s something.”

His dad watched him solemnly, the concern in his face not lessening any. Kurt took a sip of coffee as he got his words together. “I travelled in my dream for the first time the other night. I shared a dream with someone else.”

He paused to give his revelation some time to sink in. After a moment of tense silence, his dad exhaled slowly and Kurt searched his features over and over again for some clue as to how he was taking this. The lines of concern and tightness around his mouth hadn’t smoothed out any and a small part of Kurt began to fear that his dad would take back his acceptance and force him to go and see a doctor. He gripped his coffee mug tighter.

“Who did you share a dream with?” his dad asked in a low voice, his calmness surprising Kurt, who had been preparing for him to behave more frantically.

Kurt licked his lips. “His name is Blaine. He’s a teenager – must be about the same age as me.”

His dad’s eyes widened. “Blaine?” he repeated. “You know his name?”

“He spoke to me; the second time we met he introduced himself.” Kurt’s stomach squirmed uncomfortably at the memory of his own behaviour afterwards.

Eyes still wide with shock, his dad stared at him for a moment, looking as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How many times have you seen him?”

“Just twice,” Kurt replied. “Both times I’ve travelled.”

“And he spoke to you?”

Kurt nodded. “Yes.” He pushed his empty coffee mug aside. “It’s only normal for him to do that; a lot of people talk to the person they share dreams with.”

Scratching at his chin, his dad nodded in slow contemplation. “Did he seem alright? I’ve heard about some people not liking who they’re sharing dreams with.”

Kurt opened his mouth to agree and hesitated. How could he assure his dad Blaine wasn’t someone he could see himself having problems with if he had never spoken to him?

“I- I guess he’s friendly enough – I mean, he came over and introduced himself – but I- um, I never actually spoke to him.” He felt himself flushing, his cheeks warming to a rosy red as the shame at rebuffing Blaine’s friendly advances filled him. His dad’s eyebrows had risen in surprise again, and Kurt fumbled to explain himself.

“I’d only seen him for the briefest of moments in the first dream we shared and I was so surprised to see him again and for him to speak to me that I couldn’t say anything in response. Soon after he introduced himself, I woke up.”

Kurt was aware he sounded defensive, but it was the truth. He had been shocked to the point of speechlessness. While it was impolite to ignore someone’s warm greeting and open, friendly smile, it was different being in a dream. Despite knowing about travelling, he still hadn’t expected it to happen to him, let alone that he would travel into a dream with someone as at ease with the whole situation as Blaine. From the stories he’d read, it usually took people numerous shared dreams to finally talk. The situation was far too extraordinary and fragile for social norms and other expected behavior to be followed.

Fidgeting with his coffee cup, Kurt waited to be chastised by his dad about manners and reminded that he could very well be sharing dreams with Blaine for years to come so he had better apologise and be amicable towards him. He was only right about one of these things.

His dad rested his elbows on the table and levelled his gaze at him. “I know you were surprised and a little bit scared of talking to this guy – I probably would have felt the same way in your situation – but, Kurt, you’ve gotta get off on the right foot with him. You can’t allow a bad relationship to develop between the two of you. You’re sharing your dreams with him – that’s something pretty special. If what they say in all of those research papers is true, then there are bits of both of you in these dreams: wishes, fears, your past and present. You could be sharing all of this for the rest of your lives – imagine how hard that would be if you didn’t get along?” His dad leaned a little over the table, moving closer to Kurt, eyes searching Kurt’s face to gauge his reaction. “You can’t afford to deliberately bring hostility into this. I’m not saying you did this, but you need to be careful. It sounds as though Blaine may be trying to do the right thing; you should, too.” He sat back, nodding his head a little in apparent satisfaction that Kurt understood what he’d said. “Talk to this Blaine, get to know him. You never know, you may actually like him – you guys are supposed to have similar brains or something, aren’t you?”

With the heavy weight that had been dragging him down and consuming his thoughts since he’d woken up beginning to lift, Kurt smiled. “Thanks, dad.”

His dad reached over and patted his hand. “Anytime, kid.”

~ * ~

When Blaine entered school on Monday morning he made a beeline for the lockers where his best friend Wes was standing. Before Wes could look up from the books he was gathering in his arms, Blaine flopped dramatically against the bank of lockers.

“Am I giving off this terrible, horrifying person vibe that no one has had the decency to tell me about?” he asked in lieu of a greeting.

Wes didn’t even look up from where he was rummaging in his locker. “Good morning, Blaine, how are you on this fine spring day?” 

Blaine’s shoulders sagged. “I’m being serious!”

Finally looking at his friend around the open door of his locker, Wes sent Blaine a pointed look. “You’re being dramatic.”

Blaine said nothing to this; instead, he swivelled round until his back was against the locker, and let his head fall back against the cool metal with a soft thud. It wasn’t that he was upset at Wes for teasing him when he was so troubled by something – he’d been overdramatic enough in the past to warrant it – it was that he’d been re-playing what had happened in the dream so often since Friday night that he was beginning to question the person he’d always considered himself to be. If he was as empathetic and attuned to other people’s feelings as he’d always believed, then why did he not think the boy from his dreams may not be ready for a friendly conversation? And why had he thought it would be a good idea to sneak up behind him and then pounce on him with an introduction? He shouldn’t be surprised the boy woke up.

At Blaine’s frown and downcast eyes, Wes slammed his locker shut and turned to face him fully. “What’s wrong? Did you finally try to talk to latte-loveheart guy and scare him off with the far-fetched sub context you read in his coffee milk art?”

Blaine sighed and rolled his eyes, unable to help a tiny smile from twitching a corner of his mouth upwards. “You know I didn’t.” He twisted back around to face Wes again. “And why would he put lovehearts in everyone’s coffee if it wasn’t Valentine’s Day?”

Wes smiled teasingly. “Because he was still learning? Because he felt like drawing hearts with the milk for a while to alleviate the repetition of his job?”

Blaine shook his head. “I’m not so sure, Wes. I swear he winked at me when I picked up my coffee.”

“That wasn’t a wink, I saw him adjusting his contact lens not moments later.”

Unable to hold back his laugh, Blaine waved his hands in resignation. “Whatever, whatever. I did not go to the coffee shop over the weekend.”

“So what’s bothering you?” Wes asked, his expression shifting from teasing to serious and concerned in the blink of an eye. “Is it your parents again?”

Sobering, Blaine shook his head. “No, it’s not my parents. You know how I travelled in my dream for the first time a few weeks back?”

After stewing over everything that had happened in his first shared dream for several days, Blaine had decided to confide in someone about his experience. He had never been one for keeping things completely to himself and found talking about his issues with someone to be greatly beneficial for sorting it all out in his head and establishing his feelings on the matter. With his parents and doctor immediately ruled out of discussions about travelling, Blaine had decided Wes was the best person to confide in. He knew all about Blaine’s condition and had supported him through all of the exhaustion and side effects from experimental medication in the past. He had never failed to help Blaine turn whatever was troubling him into something positive.

Wes nodded, the concern in his eyes deepening as he tried to figure out what was bothering his friend. 

“Well it happened again on Friday night. I shared a dream with the same guy, only this time I decided to introduce myself to him.”

Wes’ mouth twisted with sympathy, understanding dawning in his eyes. “I’m guessing it didn’t go well.”

Blaine automatically lifted a hand to run through his hair in frustration, only to drop it back to his side when his mind caught up with his arm and reminded him of the amount of gel holding his hair in its neat, slicked down style. He let out a huff instead. “He didn’t say anything; just took one shocked, scared look at me and then ran off. I tried to follow him, but he disappeared pretty quickly. He must have woken up.” He sighed, looking almost pleadingly at Wes. “Do you think I’ve ruined any chance we had of being friends? I’d hate to be in a strained relationship with the person I’m sharing dreams with.”

Wes was silent for a moment, his eyes darting from side-to-side a few times as he thought over what Blaine had just said. “I think you’re latching onto the negative side of this far too quickly. You’ve only shared dreams with this guy twice and the first time was barely worth mentioning; you can’t be pessimistic already.”

Blaine nodded. He’d already known this, but having Wes tell it to him somehow made it actually sink in. By having someone repeat his own thoughts it was affirmed that what he had been thinking was right and he wasn’t on the wrong path. He doubted this conversation with Wes would completely clear his head of all of his worries on the subject, but it took some of the weight off his shoulders and helped straightened out the tangled mess in his mind.

“You’re overthinking things, Blaine,” Wes added, giving Blaine a small smile. “Most likely, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for what happened: maybe he is afraid of his condition, maybe he’s worried about communicating with the person he’s sharing his dreams with, maybe he’s scared of the relationship you two may have. Until you know his side of the story you shouldn’t be so worried about it, especially seeing as it’s only early days. Give it some time.” He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful, before grinning. “Oh, and by the sounds of it you did sneak up on him; that can be pretty scary.”

Ignoring this last remark, Blaine thought it all over, remembering the genuine shock in the boy’s eyes when he’d turned around and found Blaine standing there, the uncertainty that had crept into his expression when Blaine had introduced himself. He could understand why the boy has been shocked and scared – he felt the same way – but didn’t he see how important it was that they got along? Couldn’t he have pushed aside his fears long enough to shake Blaine’s hand and say hello for the sake of making things more comfortable between them in the future? They couldn’t always avoid or ignore each other, could they?

Wes seemed to read what was on Blaine’s mind.

“Give it some time, Blaine,” he repeated. “You’ll only make it worse if you keep thinking like this.” He checked his watch and gently nudged Blaine so he started to walk down the corridor. “We’d better hurry or we’ll be late, and I for one don’t want to get in Mrs. Green’s bad books again.”

Blaine did his best to stay focused on his classes, concentrating twice as hard as normal upon what his teachers were saying and on his work, but as soon as the school day was over and he was back home he let that focus slide. Dashing up to his room, he fired up his laptop and opened the internet search browser with a determined air. Feeling a cautious mix of hope and dread, he typed his request into the search bar.

‘Oneironautic dream travelling.’

It wasn’t his first time doing research on this subject, he’d done it before many times when he’d been feeling particularly curious or anxious about it, going through page after page of results and reading anything that looked credible. The difference now was that he wasn’t desperately looking for research papers or scientific articles detailing the current understanding of the science behind travelling or all the failed attempts at relieving people of these intense dreams; today he was looking for stories from fellow travellers.

He’d never read any of these real-life accounts, dismissing these posts as unlikely to tell him anything he didn’t already know. He’d thought only evidence-based scientific articles were of any value to him. Back when he’d been diagnosed as a teenager starting to go through puberty, as nearly all were at diagnosis, his doctor had suggested reading online posts of experiences of others with the condition and even writing about his own thoughts and feelings as a way of coming to terms with his condition and gaining a richer understanding of it. He’d never done it.

Leaning closer to his computer screen, Blaine scrolled past all the links to papers describing clinical trial results and articles on the cold, hard facts and current favored theories until he reached the blogs and forum posts. He scanned the short excerpts of the posts until he came across one he liked the sound of and clicked on the link.

The webpage that loaded on his computer was from some kind of online support group for oneironautics. The post was someone describing a particular dream they had shared with someone they travelled with frequently. The dream had been particularly distressing for this person, mostly because it had kept them asleep for almost three days. Reading through the rest of the post, Blaine guessed the author was having some problems with work because of their condition, but they appeared to find solace in their dreaming partner as they were especially understanding and comforting. Reading through a few more of the author’s more recent posts, Blaine discovered the poster had a good friendship with their dream partner, one that, to Blaine, had recently seemed a bit too idealistic. 

Sitting back in his desk chair, Blaine contemplated what he’d just read. It appeared to be completely possible to have what he had hoped for: friendship with the boy from his dreams. By the sounds of things, forming a close friendship with a dream partner was extremely beneficial, both for managing the dreams and the condition as well as for everyday life. This confirmation of what he had always hoped to be true was all fair and good, but it wasn’t much use if the boy he shared dreams with wouldn’t talk to him.

Scrolling back up to the top of the page, Blaine clicked through to the main homepage of the forum and quickly found what he was looking for: a thread on travelling for the first time.

He spent the next hour reading through accounts of people sharing their dreams for the first time. As he had expected, there was an entire spectrum of experiences, ranging from meetings between the two travellers that had gone disastrously wrong to those that had gone so well it was almost movielike. He felt a little better after reading about people who had gotten off to a rocky start with their dream partner, yet had still gone on to become good friends with them. It was solid proof that he and the boy from his dreams could still have the close friendship he wished for. However, the pessimistic part of him occasionally took over and his gaze would drift back to the posts detailing how sharing your dreams with someone could be horrible – cases where relationships had turned sour and the poster now dreaded going to sleep each night. He read the paragraphs about how everything had gone wrong over and over again, making his stomach churn uncomfortably and his heart race from the fear his body was swimming in. He kept telling himself it was stupid to worry after only two dreams, but he couldn’t help but focus on the worst case scenario.

Eventually, he tore his eyes away from the forum and forced himself to shut down the computer. He wouldn’t do anymore research. Wes was right: he just needed to give this boy some time to get used to the idea of them sharing their dreams. The next time they shared a dream he would keep his distance. He would wait for the boy to approach him when he was ready. He would just have to hope their bad start wasn’t an omen of things to come.


	5. Chapter 5

Kurt recognized what Blaine was doing right away.

In the first dream they shared after Blaine’s failed friendly introduction, Blaine kept his distance; he stayed within sight of Kurt, but always out of earshot and too far away for any sort of eye contact to be held. Kurt knew he was giving him space – or, at least that’s what he hoped he was doing; he just as well could have been staying away because of his rudeness. He was pretty confident the latter wasn’t true, though.

The dream was short. They were both in a large hall that reminded Kurt of the insides of the old European cathedrals he’d seen on TV with huge, arched, leaded windows letting streams of sunlight flood the room like cutting golden bars through the dusty air. The floor was made of stone and was worn into uneven curves and hollows in places. The hall was empty save for the two of them, standing at opposite sides of the hall. Kurt expected his footsteps to echo in such a large, empty space, but he heard only silence.

Kurt walked slowly down the length of his side of the hall, pausing frequently. As he did so he ran through dozens of different scenarios in his head, ways in which he could apologise to Blaine and get them back onto the right track. Every now and then he would shoot a not-so-covert glance across at Blaine, watching the other boy take in the view of a huge stained glass window dominating the end wall of the hall. His profile was caught strikingly against the background of one of the many windows, his sculptured jawline, full lips, and the curling hair escaping from a prison of gel catching Kurt’s attention. Once or twice he just missed meeting Blaine’s gaze, and his heart skipped at the thought that Blaine was just as intrigued by him as he was.

He had just decided on what he was going to say and had managed to stuff all of the residual worry that Blaine was annoyed at him into a locked box in the back of his mind, when an odd movement in the corner of his eye distracted him.

The hall had abruptly, inexplicably doubled in size. The high wooden double doors that had stood not too far away from him were now a good distance away, the aged spots and whorls in the wood and intricate carvings no longer visible. Unlike the half of the hall that he and Blaine were in, this newly materialised part wasn’t empty; instead, it was filled with benches, chairs, and couches of all styles, shapes, and sizes, arranged into rows facing the doors. In his peripheral vision, Kurt saw Blaine turning to look at this sudden addition as well.

Kurt frowned at the rows of seating. It was an odd sight to see in a place like this, and it was even stranger that it had all suddenly appeared in between one blink of an eye and the next. It was all very wei-

Kurt’s eyes opened to the dark ceiling of his bedroom. He groaned, feeling frustrated with himself. He knew exactly why he had woken up at that particular point – it was something he’d managed to piece together over the years, but had also been proposed by scientists in various research publications: his subconscious mind had recognised something unusual, something that practically had a big sign pointing at it saying ‘this is not real!’. He had subconsciously become aware that he was dreaming and his body had jerked him awake. Sometimes, it took hours for him to realise he was dreaming – there had been cases where it had taken people years to wake up – but of course he was pulled awake after barely any time at all when he wanted to put things right with Blaine.

Huffing in annoyance, Kurt rolled over onto his other side and got comfortable, trying to fall asleep again. He knew the chances of dreaming lucidly again that night was very slim, and the chances of seeing Blaine slimmer again, but it was still a school night and it was late; he needed his sleep.

He was glad he managed to fall asleep relatively quickly as the next day at school was hell. From the moment he got out of his car in the parking lot it started.

“Hey, Hummel, who are you trying to impress in those fancy, girly clothes you always wear? Any man stupid enough to be interested will only see you on your knees!”

Inhaling deeply, Kurt ignored the insult, and began speed-walking towards the front doors. Cackling laughter trailed after him as he crossed the parking lot in record time and flew up the steps and into school. He rolled his shoulders on his way to his locker, determinedly brushing the insult off. That same group of meatheads, led by the shaved head of Luke Whitman, had been targeting him for years, throwing insults, water balloons, and homophobic remarks his way whenever they weren’t shoving him into lockers, tripping him up on the stairs, or tossing him in the dumpster. When complaining to the principal had done nothing he’d learned to let it all run off him like water off a duck’s back – mostly.

Today was one of those days Kurt could tell would be hard; today he wouldn’t be able to ignore every insult or dust himself off and carry on as normal after he was slammed into the lockers. He knew from the moment he stepped out of his car that today he would rather be in one of his dreams. 

His suspicions were confirmed when he was tripped up on his way to sit down in his first class, had balled-up pieces of paper with homophobic slurs and crude drawings scrawled on them pelted at him during the following class, and his books were deliberately knocked out of his hands as he walked in the halls. He began to wonder if they had coordinated it, if they’d all been part of a campaign to make his life hell on that particular day.

By lunchtime he wanted nothing more than to go home and shut himself up in his room. It didn’t help that his friends weren’t being particularly supportive. They made some sympathetic noises and Rachel gave a short speech about rising above them and fighting through it, but they were all too preoccupied with their own problems to give him too much focus. Feeling a little lonely and snubbed, Kurt found himself thinking about Blaine again, wishing he’d had a chance to speak to him, wondering if he would understand his situation or if he wouldn’t know what to say either. He could only hope he wasn’t like Luke, making both his waking and dreaming hours hell.

By the time Kurt was driving home he had new bruises forming on his left elbow and hip from where he’d collided with the lockers, a few pages in one of his textbooks had been torn when his books had been smacked out of his grasp and someone else had deliberately stood on them, and he’d been insulted and mocked in more ways than he could count. Tears prickled his eyes and his throat closed up, but he bit his lip and forced deep breaths in and out of his lungs. He would not cry.

The house was empty when he got home, both his dad and Carole out at work. He welcomed being alone for a couple more hours, needing the time to compose himself and hitch a content smile on his face for his family. They knew he was having problems with bullies, but they didn’t know how bad it was, and he had no intention of giving them the full picture. Simply put, he just didn’t want them to worry. He was managing, he was surviving, he was getting through each day – there wasn’t really much for them to be concerned about. Besides that, he and his dad had already tried speaking to the principal; there was nothing more anyone could do to help him. All they could do was worry, and they had enough on their plates without that added stress.

Lying on his bed sprawled out on his back, Kurt listened to music on his iPod. Music had always been important to him; it never failed to soothe him or shift his mood to the tone of whatever he was listening to and it united him with people he may not otherwise know – he owed most of his friends to the connection music provided. Singing was another passion of his; it was his way of expressing himself when he couldn’t find words. This was why he’d eagerly joined his school’s Glee club when it had been revitalised last year. It was in those meetings in the dusty choir room, that he had befriended Rachel, Sam, and his other friends. Everyone tended to stick together in Glee – they weren’t exactly popular with the rest of the student body. Unfortunately, there was little they could do to help him; he couldn’t be frogmarched to each classroom or shielded from the bullies every second he was on school grounds. His friends did the best they could and they did help – but sometimes it just wasn’t enough.

Switching to an upbeat song, Kurt relaxed into the mattress and closed his eyes. He soon found a small smile on his face as the negativity rapidly drained from his body. Just one year and he would be done with high school and out of Lima, Ohio. Just one year and he would be away from all of the shit and living a much happier life.

When his dad and Carole arrived home and they asked him about his day over dinner he was able to smile and say it was fine.

Over the next two weeks Kurt waited on tenterhooks to travel again. He had many lucid dreams, but Blaine wasn’t present in any of them. He recognised almost immediately when he was alone in his dreams, unable to sense Blaine’s presence. It was only after a week or so of this that he realized he was able to sense such a thing as Blaine being present. He couldn’t quite explain it, really, just that something was missing, something that had been there in the dreams he’d shared with Blaine.

As time went by and no Blaine appeared in his dreams, he became frustrated and even searched online for ways to induce dream travel, but found nothing.

Annoyed, he was forced to wait for it to just happen. 

One night, over two weeks after the day of the Campaign To Make Kurt’s Day Hell, Kurt went to bed after agonizing over an English essay for three and a half hours and found himself standing in scrubby parkland. He had barely taken in his surroundings when he knew: Blaine was in the dream with him.

With his heart beating wildly and an effervescent mixture of hope and nervous excitement building in his stomach, Kurt scanned the area frantically for any sign of Blaine, spotting him almost straight away. 

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Kurt walked over to Blaine, praying he wouldn’t move from where he was standing. His feet made no noise as he strode through the long, scruffy grass with its tangle of weeds. As Blaine was facing away from him, Kurt didn’t think he heard him approaching, but when they were a few feet apart, Blaine turned to face him. Kurt’s greeting caught in his throat.

Blaine was stunning; more beautiful than he remembered. His skin had natural tan tones to it, his shoulders were broad, and his waist was tiny. But it was his eyes that stood out to Kurt. More breath-taking than what he remembered from the tornado dream, they were a gorgeous honeyed hazel color, flecked with greens and browns, and fringed by long, thick, dark eyelashes. 

Kurt swallowed thickly, trying not to let his attraction show. “H- Hi,” he stammered. Embarrassment sunk through him like it was a heavy weight he’d just swallowed. “I’m Kurt – Kurt Hummel. I’m really sorry about the way I behaved before – just running off and leaving you hanging. You just surprised me and – I don’t know – I was a bit overwhelmed.”

Blaine smiled – and oh God, his smile was as beautiful as the rest of him – and offered his hand to Kurt. “It’s nice to meet you, Kurt,” he said when Kurt shook his hand. “I’m Blaine.”

“I know,” Kurt said thoughtlessly. Mentally slapping himself, he smiled apologetically at Blaine again. “I really am sorry that I made us start off on the wrong foot. I never meant for sharing dreams with someone to go like this.”

Blaine eyed him appraisingly. “How did you mean for this to go?”

Frustratingly, Kurt felt himself blushing. “Well, I’d hoped it would all be sunshine and rainbows, to be honest. Like a perfect new friendship. I’ve always wanted to become good friends with whoever I shared my dreams with.”

“Who says we can’t be good friends?” Blaine asked, spreading his hands as though posing his question to the entirety of the scrubby parkland. “Just because we had a little hiccup at the start, doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

Kurt shook his head briskly, his blush burning hotly on his cheeks. “I was being silly. I’ve been thinking of everything that could go wrong and every reason you had to dislike me.” 

Smiling understandingly, Blaine laid a hand on Kurt’s arm. Kurt jumped slightly, his blush impossibly darkening further at the feel of Blaine’s warm, soft hand on his arm. “Kurt, so far, I’ve got no reason to dislike you, and there’s no sense in worrying about every possible thing that could go wrong.” He patted Kurt’s arm and removed his hand. “I think we can say that this probably won’t be all sunshine and rainbows, though. We may not be in the real world, but this is still very much a version of reality.”

Kurt nodded his agreement and they fell silent for a moment, Blaine staring across the park, while Kurt tried not to ogle him. Blaine was a few inches shorter than him, he noticed. For some reason, the observation made warmth spill into his stomach.

Blaine looked back at him with a dazzling smile. “How about we tell each other a little about ourselves? After all, we’re probably going to be spending time together quite regularly for a long time.” 

“Sure.” Kurt looked around at the weedy grass surrounding them and gestured to it. “Um, do you want to sit?”

Blaine flopped down gracefully on the ground where he was standing and Kurt copied him, shifting until he was sitting directly opposite him. The ground was surprisingly comfortable.

“So…” Kurt said, unsure where to begin.

Thankfully, Blaine didn’t have such problems.

“What’s your favorite music?” he asked eagerly.

“Oh, um…” Kurt was a little thrown by the question; he’d been expecting something more basic and straightforward, such as how old he was.

Sensing Kurt’s surprise, Blaine shrugged and explained, “You can tell a lot about someone from how they answer that question.”

Kurt thought for a bit. “I’m not sure I have a favorite artist or anything, but I really like a lot of pop stuff, like Lady Gaga. I also love Broadway musical soundtracks, because they tell a story and there’s always a song to reflect my current mood.” He hesitated for a second, debating how much to reveal, before deciding he might as well just lay his cards on the table and see what kind of person Blaine really was. “I’m in my school’s Glee club, so I get exposed to a lot of different music through that.”

Blaine’s face lit up. “You’re in show choir? Me, too!”

Kurt laughed a little from relief and delight. “Wow, really? Do you guys compete?”

Blaine nodded. “We went to Nationals this year, but didn’t place.”

Kurt raised his eyebrows, impressed. “That’s still incredible! We only got as far as Regionals this year, but we’re determined to make it all the way next year. What’s your group called?”

Blaine’s smiled widened. “The Warblers,” he replied enthusiastically. “We’re an a Capella group.”

“A Capella, huh?” With Blaine’s gelled hair and debonair looks he could see it, actually. “Our group is called the New Directions. We make a band come with us to competitions to play for us.”

They continued to talk about show choir for a while, discussing their individual groups, their experiences competing, and their dream setlists. From there the topic of conversation flowed naturally on to Broadway musicals, then to movies, and then to their hobbies. Kurt described his love of fashion and how he liked to purchase cheap, second-hand clothes from thrift stores and redesign them to give them a fashionable new lease of life. Blaine talked about playing the piano and guitar and how he helped a local children’s theatre group every year with their big summer production by helping create sets and playing the piano for them. Kurt soon found himself wondering why he’d been so worried about getting to know Blaine.

It was difficult to tell how long they sat there and talked. Neither of them had access to a clock and the sun never changed position in the sky. It was almost as if time had frozen in the little pocket of the universe where they were sitting. It was wonderful; usually the time spent getting to know someone was cut short by the rest of life, but here it wasn’t. And when they person he was getting to know was as fascinating as Blaine, Kurt was glad there were no interruptions.

Kurt found himself liking Blaine more and more as he learned more about him. Blaine was funny, sweet, and seemed genuinely interested in hearing what he had to say. They also had a lot in common, including a shared love of music, Vogue magazine, vintage bowties, and old movies. It was nice to be able to talk enthusiastically with someone about so much.

In a brief pause at the tail-end of an in-depth discussion on the latest musical-to-movie adaptation, Blaine vanished without warning. Kurt only had a second to blink in surprise at the empty space in front of him before understanding trickled to the forefront of his brain and he woke up. 

At first, disappointment fizzled through him at not getting to spend a little more time with Blaine, but then he thought about how long they’d spoken and how much they knew about each other now… With this thought and the knowledge that he’d share many more dreams with Blaine in mind, he reached to grab his phone from the nightstand and switched off his alarm. The day was looking to be a good one.

~ * ~

It started the moment Blaine arrived home after Warbler practice. Both of his parents were already home and they were sitting in the living room, just off the entrance hall, waiting for him. He knew as soon as he stepped foot inside and saw them sitting there – his mom on the couch, his dad in his favorite armchair – that they were about to lecture him on something. He’d only come home to them sitting waiting for him like this a few times, but each time had been because they were disappointed about something: his grade in a test one time, his decision to stop a particular therapy, when he’d agreed to some extra volunteering hours with the children’s theatre group during the school semester. Unlike all of those other times, he didn’t know what this lecture could possibly be about. He hesitated in the doorway for a tense moment, his fingers twitching nervously against the strap of his satchel, until he decided to bite the bullet and get whatever this was over with.

Taking a strengthening breath, Blaine entered the living room. His parents looked at him coolly.

“Sit down, Blaine,” his dad said, his voice controlled and toneless in a manner that Blaine associated with him being deeply frustrated and disappointed in something Blaine had said or done.

Heart thumping loudly, Blaine perched on the very edge of the couch, his back ramrod straight and his posture stiff. He wanted to speak up and ask what was going on, but his throat was stuck with worry; if he didn’t already know what this was about then it must have been something especially bad. He only hoped they wouldn’t forbid him from going to the theatre again.

His dad didn’t keep him in suspense for long.

“Your mother and I would like to know why you aren’t seeing your doctor, or on a treatment regime?” his dad asked levelly, still dangerously and deceivingly calm, like the turquoise waters with the poisonous jellyfish below the surface. Unless Blaine backed down quickly and apologised profusely, his calm demeanor would shatter.

Blaine’s mouth dropped open slightly in surprise. Of all the possible disappointing actions he’d thought may have triggered this discussion, his decision to temporarily stop seeking treatment for his condition hadn’t been one of them.

“I-” He floundered for a moment before being able to reply. “I just wanted a break from constantly testing different treatments that don’t work,” he explained, his words coming out defensive. “I told Mom this after my last appointment with Dr. Lewis.”

His mom nodded in acknowledgement. “Yes, but that was weeks ago. And you told me Dr. Lewis would contact you if there was any news from some of the current trials, but there’s been no word from her.”

“How do you know I haven’t heard from her?”

His mom shook his head at him. “Well, you haven’t been to see her, have you?” When Blaine said nothing to this, only stared helplessly back, she added, “I know for a fact there have been new developments, including more trial recruiting and an alternative medicine option, yet you’ve discussed none of this with her.”

“Why are you suddenly avoiding trying to find something to help yourself?” his dad asked. “You’ve been happily going along to appointments and taking part in the trials we’ve suggested for years – why are you being so stubborn now?”

“Yes,” Blaine agreed, careful not to raise his voice or let too much of his agitation slip into his tone, “and look how much those treatments and appointments helped. I don’t want to keep wasting my time with them.”

His dad folded his arms tightly across his chest and his stony face pinched into an angry frown. “So you’re giving up?” He shook his head. “I hope you don’t have the same defeatist attitude with your school work.”

Blaine let out a small huff of frustration. “I’ve been trying to find something for almost four years! That’s hardly defeatist!”

From the expressions on his parent’s faces, neither of them agreed with him. Blaine tried to think of a way to make them understand, but he couldn’t think of anything he hadn’t said already. They didn’t know what it was like to be testing a new, elaborate pre-bedtime ritual each month, or to be testing different drugs that did nothing to ease his lucid dreams but still caused sometimes nasty side effects, or to be poked and prodded by researchers and spend nights in the sleep lab hooked up to monitors. It was easy for them to say he should stick with it, but there was only so much he could take.

“Don’t you want to stop those dreams?” his mom asked. “Don’t you want to be able to sleep normally?”

“I- Of course I do!” Blaine stammered. “But I’ve got more important things to worry about just now: I’ll be in senior year soon and then there’ll be college applications and exams… I don’t have the time to travel to see doctors or to be feeling spaced out from some medication. I don’t see why I can’t wait until they bring out a treatment that is proven to work.”

His parents exchanged a look and Blaine knew things were about to get worse. His dad sat forward in his chair, unfolding his arms and resting his elbows on his knees. His frown deepened and his eyes narrowed. 

“I don’t know who’s been putting these ridiculous ideas in your head, Blaine, but you need to have a good, long think about what you’re doing. If you had diabetes or a heart condition you’d be religiously taking your medications and keeping on top of the latest trials and treatments, so why aren’t you doing the same for your condition?”

“You’re being immature and irresponsible, Blaine,” his mom agreed gravely, her face knitted in a stern frown.

“My condition isn’t as serious as heart disease,” Blaine retorted. “All it does is make me a bit tired at times. I can manage taking a break from being on a treatment regime.”

“Some serious illnesses don’t cause any major problems, either, until it’s too late,” his mom pointed out.

“I’m not ill,” Blaine said through gritted teeth.

“Not now you’re not,” his dad acknowledged. “But what you have isn’t healthy; it’s all going to catch up on you eventually.” Shaking his head at Blaine, his dad stood up. “You can’t carry on being childish about this, Blaine. Grow up and think of your health.”

Jumping to his feet, Blaine scowled at his parents. He couldn’t take much more of this. He was almost seventeen years old and he was being treated as if he were a child who was incapable of making sensible decisions about his life. He was the one who had the condition, he was the one who had to deal with the consequences of it, so why shouldn’t he be the one who made the decisions about treatment? And he knew his parents would be quick to complain if his grades slipped, yet they weren’t listening to his comments about how all of the drugs and trials affected his school work. He was tired of it. 

“I am thinking of my health when I say that being on all of these therapies and trials is driving me crazy. None of them made me sleep better – some of them made it worse!” He breathed out harshly, releasing some of his frustration along with his breath. “I’m not saying I never want to treat this; I just want a break from trying to do so.”

“You’re making a mistake,” his dad said, his voice still sharp with anger.

Blaine shrugged. “It’s my mistake to make.”

With his point made, Blaine turned and left the room. On his way up the stairs to his room, he heard his parents start talking again, no doubt discussing him and his poor decisions. He’d always struggled with going against his parent’s wishes and disappointing them, but this was the one time he couldn’t back down in an attempt to please them. He was sick of being a guinea pig for a conveyor belt of treatments that were guaranteed to fail and, though he’d never admit it to anyone, he didn’t want to risk one of these treatments finally working, not now, not when he was only just beginning to get to know Kurt Hummel.


	6. Chapter 6

He was in a building that resembled a warehouse: the wooden floors warped and shiny with age, thick beams crisscrossing above his head, and high-set, dusty windows letting in streams of golden sunlight. Though there was no door or stairs to be seen, Blaine confidently knew he could get out if he wanted and didn’t feel at all troubled by the apparent lack of exit. There was no sound of a city or industrial area beyond the walls, no sound at all, in fact, except for his breathing and footsteps – the sound of Kurt walking towards him.

Blaine’s face broke into a bright smile. He’d known Kurt was in the warehouse with him from the moment he’d arrived, but he still felt a surge of delight upon seeing his face.

“Hi,” he said, slightly breathlessly, when Kurt reached him. 

Kurt beamed at him. “Hi.” He was wearing tight, dark jeans, black boots, and a particularly soft looking grey sweater; Blaine found the sight a little distracting.

Kurt was now looking around at the space they were standing in. “This place would be great for a fashion shoot,” he observed, swivelling on his heel to look behind him. “The lighting and the beams in the ceiling would be ideal for fall fashion.”

Looking around, Blaine shrugged. “I don’t really have an eye for that sort of thing. I collect old cameras, but that’s only because I love vintage stuff like that and I think they look great displayed on a shelf, but I’m not really a photographer.”

Kurt turned back to him. “I’ve taken a few photography classes in the past, so I know a little about lenses and lighting and stuff.” He shrugged and smiled again. “Anyway, how have you been?”

Blaine opened his mouth to automatically respond positively – and hesitated, his disagreement with his parents floating to the forefront of his mind. He wanted to tell Kurt, to talk to someone who might understand how he was feeling and why he was going against his parents’ wishes, but he also didn’t want to unload his problems onto a near stranger. He maybe had a special connection with Kurt, one that may last a lifetime, but that didn’t mean he could dump all of his problems on him and ask for his advice, not yet anyway. He worried the scarred tissue on the inside of his cheek between his teeth, trying to decide on what to say.

Kurt noticed his hesitation and the conflicted expression on his face. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I’d rather you tell me what’s going on than you let it eat away inside of you.”

Blaine nodded slowly and told Kurt about his parents’ desperate need to find an effective treatment, the years of seeing dozens of doctors and of going from treatment to treatment, and their fears his health would get worse. He told him about his decision to take a step back from treatments and clinical trials for a while and how his parents thought he was being immature and irresponsible. Kurt listened intently, keeping his eyes fixed on Blaine’s face and nodding his head every now and then. When Blaine was finished talking he felt relieved – it was good to share his troubles with someone, especially someone who would likely understand.

Kurt smiled sympathetically at him. “My family tried to talk me into seeing a doctor and signing up to a clinical trial the other day. They respected my decision last year to stop looking for the elusive cure, but they brought it up again recently. They tried being a bit more persuasive, but I explained why I didn’t want to go back to a life as a research subject and they accepted my decision.” He raised a hand half towards Blaine, let it hover uncertainly in the space between them for a second, before resting it on Blaine’s shoulder in a gesture that made Blaine feel confusingly comforted and tense.

“I’m sorry your parents aren’t as accepting, but this can’t be easy on them. We have a rare condition that is mostly a mystery, with unknown long-term health issues and no effective treatment.” Kurt gave Blaine’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “We have to try and keep that in mind whenever our families do something like this. It may be our lives and our decision, but they are only worried about us.” Kurt let his hand rest on Blaine’s shoulder for a moment longer, before lowering it back to his side. Blaine immediately missed its warmth.

Blaine sighed. “I know this is all because they care about me, but it’s frustrating that I can’t have a say for once. I’ve been obediently going to all of the appointments they booked and taking all the treatments they decided upon since I was thirteen – why can’t I follow my own decisions for once?” Blaine shook his head and smiled apologetically at Kurt. “Sorry for dumping all of this on you, but I knew you would understand.”

Kurt waved his apology away. “It doesn’t bother me. You can vent to me at any time, especially if it’s bothering you as much as this.” Kurt’s eyebrows drew together in a tiny frown. “I just wish I could be of more help.”

Blaine’s eyes widened at this – it was the last thing he wanted. He hastened to reassure him. “Oh, no, don’t feel that way! Having someone listen was all I needed. I know my parents have been a bit overprotective and extra concerned about my health since I spent some time in hospital when I was fourteen, but I had hoped they would have relaxed a little by now and be allowing me to be my own person.” He shrugged a little wearily. “I guess I was wrong – and I guess they are entitled to worry about me.”

Kurt’s expression turned curious at the mention of his hospital visit and the concern in his eyes increased. Blaine could tell he wanted to ask about it and that it was pure concern from him that drove Kurt’s curiosity, but he was relieved when Kurt didn’t say anything. He was just not ready to talk about that with Kurt yet. Talking about his stint in hospital would also involve revealing that he was gay and he wasn’t ready to tell Kurt that, either. He had a feeling that it wouldn’t be an issue, but he didn’t want to risk screwing up what they were tentatively building by revealing his sexuality. There was also the chance that Kurt may be homophobic, but he couldn’t see it.

They moved on to easier topics of conversation after that and Blaine felt his good mood increase, his frustration with his parents being replaced by eagerness to learn more about Kurt and the comforting happiness he was beginning to associate with being around him. His mood improved so much that he woke up with a smile on his face and optimism bubbling inside him. 

 

~ * ~

 

Smelling the strong scent of coffee in the air even this distance from the kitchen, Blaine hurried through the notions of getting washed and dressed, and then he went downstairs, hoping to catch at least one of his parents before they left.

His mom was sitting at the kitchen table reading through some papers and drinking coffee. Too absorbed in reading up on whatever new house she was trying to sell, she didn’t notice Blaine until he’d poured himself some coffee and sat down opposite her.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, her eyes searching Blaine’s face for signs of tiredness.

Blaine nodded, knowing she wouldn’t be completely convinced if he didn’t answer firmly or if he showed any signs of wavering. “I did.”

She searched his face for a moment longer, before taking another sip of coffee, apparently satisfied. “That’s good; you’ve been looking tired lately.”

Blaine resisted the urge to roll his eyes; his mom was always saying that. He reached for his mug and drank some coffee. “I wanted to apologise for how I behaved yesterday. I was disrespectful and rash; I’m sorry.”

His mom set her mug down and dipped her head in acknowledgement. “Your father and I are only thinking about what is best for you, Blaine.”

“I know,” Blaine said somewhat meekly. He hated how he always felt so guilty whenever something like this happened. “I know you are – but I really want to take a break from treatments for a while and I wish you and dad would respect this.”

His mom considered him for a long moment, her expression difficult to read. Blaine fully expected her to tell him to go back to seeing his doctor and was surprised when she let out a small sound of resignation.

“Okay,” she said, making a sharp burst of hope and acceptance shoot through Blaine; a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I still don’t think you’re doing the best thing for yourself, but I suppose a short break from treatment won’t do any harm.”

Blaine had expected the approval to come with a firm cautioning that this was only temporary and that he’d be expected to return to the search for a cure soon, so her emphasis on the break from treatment being only temporary did little to dampen his mood. He would deal with the inevitable flip in her decision when the time came. 

 

~ * ~

Blaine was still in a good mood when he met up with Wes at their favorite coffee shop that afternoon. Upon seeing his constant smile and the spring in his step, Wes had jumped to the conclusion that he was giddy about seeing his coffee shop crush and teased him from the moment he stepped foot in the café.

“Since he declared his interest in you last time with a loveheart, do you think he’ll give you his number in the milk of your latte?”

“I’m getting a cappuccino,” Blaine shot back.

They joined the back of the short line that snaked its way along the length of the glass-fronted cake cabinet. Blaine glanced at the coffee-heart barista where he stood by the gleaming bank of coffee machines, filling a paper cup with frothed milk. His dark blond hair was swept over to one side where it was longer on the top of his head and the sleeves of his blue uniform shirt were rolled up to his elbows, showing off his tanned forearms. A pair of thick, black framed glasses were perched on his nose, making him have to move to stand at an angle to the coffee machines every now and then to avoid the lenses becoming steamed up. He was either a high school senior or had graduated recently and was way out of Blaine’s league. 

They shuffled forward a few steps and Blaine turned his attention to the baked goods on display in the cabinet beside him, trying to decide if he wanted to treat himself to something with his coffee.

Wes leaned in close to him. “Maybe he ices the cupcakes as well,” he teased, his eyes also on the cakes. “Then he could put lovehearts and cute messages and compliments about your butt on your cake and coffee.”

“Compliments about my butt?” Blaine repeated, amused.

Wes shrugged. “Straight guys notice girl’s butts, so gay guys must notice other guy’s butts.”

“Such wonderful, logical reasoning,” Blaine remarked with a soft snort. “But correct in essence.” He glanced down at the cakes again. “Though I don’t know what kind of butt compliment you could fit on a cupcake beyond a simple ‘nice ass’.”

“Isn’t that enough for you?”

Blaine laughed lightly, shaking his head, and looked back over at coffee-heart guy, bemoaning the café’s lack of nametags for their staff. It would be so much more convenient if he knew the guy’s name instead of having to refer to him as ‘coffee-heart guy’ all the time. He supposed he could ask him what his name was, but that seemed a little weird.

After placing orders for their drinks and stepping to one side to wait for them, Blaine found himself watching the barista again. Unbidden, the thought of how Kurt had a more attractive profile crossed his mind, and before he knew it he was comparing the barista to Kurt. Kurt had nicer, more toned arms, Kurt had better hair and prettier eyes… There was nothing wrong with the barista, he was handsome enough, but he dulled in comparison to Kurt’s more radiant beauty. He didn’t know what this all meant.

A nudge to the ribs brought Blaine sharply back to reality. He looked at Wes.

“You might want to be a bit more subtle with the staring,” Wes suggested, stepping forward as the barista came up to the counter with their coffees.

Confused and flustered, Blaine moved forward to get his drink. He still blushed a little when he accepted his cup from the barista, but managed to return his polite smile and say thank you. 

He pushed confusing thoughts about Kurt to the back of his mind as he followed Wes to a free table. Wes smiled triumphantly at him and nodded his head in the direction of the counter, indicating the clear view of the handsome barista they had from their seats.

“He’s probably not even gay,” Blaine sighed, setting his coffee down on the table and taking a seat.

“You always say that.” Wes eyed the barista thoughtfully over the top of his coffee cup. “He doesn’t immediately set off the gaydar, but you can pass for straight in some circumstances, so maybe he’s the same.”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “Some circumstances?” he asked, curious in spite of himself. 

Wes shrugged. “Depends on what you’re wearing and what the topic of conversation is.” Setting down his coffee, he grinned at Blaine. “Right now, talking about a hot male barista while wearing a bowtie and tight pants that show off your ankles, you’d set off anybody’s gaydar.”

Resting his chin on his hand, Blaine gazed across the busy café at the barista, wondering, not for the first time, what would happen if he went up to him and introduced himself. He’d blush and stumble over his words – that much was a given. While he was rather confident and eloquent usually, past experiences had shown all of that self-assurance flew out the window when he was faced with the prospect of talking to a guy he found attractive. It was awful.

As he watched the barista hand over some drinks to a group of middle-aged women laden with shopping bags, Blaine’s mind drifted to Kurt again. He had managed to hold a conversation with him without dissolving into a blushing, stuttering mess, yet Kurt was undeniably attractive. Apparently, he was better at that sort of thing in his dreams.

Wes’ hand waved in front of his face and Blaine started out of his thoughts.

“You’d better ease off on the staring otherwise your barista crush is going to figure out pretty soon that you don’t just come here for the coffee.”

Blaine scowled at him but looked away from the counter, picking up his coffee and taking another large swallow. 

“Or…” Wes began, putting emphasis on the word by dragging it out. “You could just go up and talk to him.” Seeing the expression on Blaine’s face and knowing he was about to start up with the same old excuses, Wes added, “You won’t know if he’s gay if you don’t talk to him. Plus, all of this sighing and staring at him over your coffee is getting pretty pathetic.”

Biting his lip, Blaine shot another quick glance at the barista. “I don’t know…” he sighed. “I know it’s pathetic to sit and stare at him when I could easily talk to him – even just ask his name and compliment his coffee – but the thought of that is enough to make me freeze up because – what if he’s not?” He toyed with his coffee cup, fiddling with the edge of the plastic lid so it splintered. “He hasn’t shown any sign of being interested in me and chances are he’s straight. I think I’d rather just stare and wish for things to be different.”

But nerves and fear of ridicule weren’t the only things holding Blaine back from talking to the cute barista: the thought of Kurt was also keeping him from it. For some reason, the relationship he was building with Kurt and Kurt’s overall persona was solidifying in his life, now planted like a little seed in his heart, making him reluctant to actively do something about his little crush on the barista. Maybe it was the pull he felt towards Kurt, the nature of the dreams, or just Kurt’s intrigue and attractiveness as a person, but Blaine was more interested in Kurt than pursuing an undoubtedly misguided crush on a barista. 

 

~ * ~

Dinner time on a Friday night was an important occasion in the Hummel household. It was the one night a week where everyone made sure they were home in time to sit down to a family meal together. Burt and Carole made sure to finish up work in time and Kurt never made plans with any of his friends. The tradition had started not long after the death of Kurt’s mother with his dad finishing up work earlier to come home and, with Kurt’s help, prepare a decent, home-cooked meal. As Kurt had gotten older, he had started making sacrifices to be home for Friday night dinner and had taken over most of the cooking. It was a night of family bonding and catching up on what was happening in each other’s lives.

Humming softly, Kurt set a large dish of steamed vegetables down on the dining table and took his seat just as his dad and Carole joined him. Carole smiled at him from across the table; they’d spent the last few hours roasting chicken in a mixture of spices and Kurt had enjoyed spending time with her. Things had been a little bit sterile between them since he’d turned down her suggestion to see a doctor and he was glad everything was comfortable and easy between them once again.

“Looks good!” his dad enthused, piling food onto his plate.

Kurt frowned as his dad seasoned his food with a large helping of salt. “Dad, do you really need that much salt? You’re defeating the point of eating vegetables.”

“I’m bringing out the flavor,” his dad protested. “I’m enhancing the taste.”

Still frowning, Kurt gave in and returned his attention to his own plate. He speared a piece of chicken with his fork and popped it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “You were right, Carole: adding more cumin definitely improves it,” he said once he’d swallowed his mouthful.

“It’s what I’ve done in the past when using other spices, so I thought it might work here as well,” Carole replied. 

They were silent for a moment, simply enjoying their meal, until Burt asked Kurt about Glee club and they all fell into the usual Friday night dinner time conversations. As always, Kurt avoided mentioning the worst parts of his week, not wanting to trouble his dad and Carole with stories of his run-ins with bullies. It wasn’t something he particularly liked doing, but it was necessary. No mention was made, either, of Kurt’s sleeping habits; discussions about that during dinner had ended long ago upon Kurt’s request.

A few days later, on a normal Tuesday at school, the guidance counsellor walked into his third period French class and spoke in a hushed voice to Madame Locker. Along with everyone else in the class, Kurt looked up from the text he was studying and watched the exchange, mildly curious. The guidance counsellor usually only interrupted a lesson to pull a student out of class because something had happened to a family member or, on one occasion he’d heard of, their house had been burgled. Whatever the reason, the presence of Miss. Pillsbury meant bad news for someone in the room.

The tension in the room increased sharply when Madame Locker turned to face them, her mouth set in a tight line. 

“Mr. Hummel, would you please take your things and follow Miss. Pillsbury to her office. She’d like a word with you.”

Kurt’s stomach dropped out of him and his mind flooded with a wave of blankness followed by the resounding word no. He went numb. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. Because it was going to be bad news – what else could it be?

Madame Locker said something else, her mouth moving and her eyes fixed on him. He didn’t hear it; his ears were filled with a deafening buzzing sound, like the ringing experienced after hearing an especially loud noise. It took a nudge from the girl sitting next to him to make him move. He shoved his chair back and stood up, before throwing his books into his bag and walking jerkily to the door where Miss. Pillsbury stood waiting. She smiled tightly at him, her eyes full of sympathy. Kurt’s breathing reduced to shallow panting.

Miss. Pillsbury placed a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “This way, Kurt.”

She led him along the hall, away from his silent classmates and in the wrong direction for going to her office. Kurt couldn’t even bring himself to wonder what that meant. It wasn’t until they were out the front doors of the school and walking across the parking lot that she explained what was going on.

A hand on Kurt’s arm made him stop walking. Impatience rose sharply inside of him as he looked to Miss. Pillsbury to hear what had happened.

“Your father has been taken to hospital; he had a heart attack.”

Kurt felt the world tilt and he struggled not to fall to his knees.

“It happened an hour or so ago. I’m going to drive you to the hospital,” Miss. Pillsbury said, placing her hand on Kurt’s arm again and guiding him towards her car. Kurt got in and robotically buckled his seatbelt. The news was reaching him slowly, trickling through his numb body alongside feelings of shock, disbelief, and horror. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him again.

The drive to the hospital somehow passed by in a blur and took too long. He forgot all about Miss. Pillsbury being there as he ran up to the reception desk.

“I need to see my dad – I need to see Burt Hummel!” he gasped at the clerk.

“What’s your name?”

“Kurt Hummel,” he replied, clutching at the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles turned white.

The clerk typed something into the computer. “You won’t be able to see him at the moment, but if you go to the waiting area through those doors there you’ll be able to get an update on his condition.”

Kurt nodded and hurried off, hearing Miss. Pillsbury thank the clerk.

The waiting area consisted of several rows of plastic chairs, a drinks vending machine, a nurse’s desk, and walls plastered with numerous posters and flyers on health and healthcare services in the area. There was a nurse filling out a form behind the desk. Kurt approached her, his heart thumping and limbs trembling. She looked up when he reached the desk, smiling kindly.

“Can I help you?”

Kurt cleared his throat. “Yes – could you give me an update on my dad’s condition? His name is Burt Hummel.”

Recognition flickered in the nurse’s eyes. “Oh, yes. He was brought in a little while ago after having a heart attack. He’s in surgery at the moment having a stent put in to open up the artery that had become blocked.” Seeing the increased fear in Kurt’s expression, the nurse stood up and walked around the desk to stand in front of Kurt. She placed a comforting hand on his arm. “What’s your name?”

Kurt felt his throat tighten, a sure sign that he was about to start crying. He inhaled deeply and swallowed around the thick lump in his throat. “Kurt.”

“Well, Kurt, this type of surgery is done regularly to people who have suffered heart attacks and it is quite safe. Your dad will feel a lot better once he’s had it.” She patted his arm. 

“He’ll be out of surgery soon and you’ll be able to see him.” She guided him towards an empty row of the plastic chairs, letting go of his arm when he sat down in one. “I’ll get you some water,” she offered.

Kurt sat stiffly in the chair until she returned. He accepted the plastic cup of water from her despite his lack of interest in drinking it; it gave him something to do with his hands. 

The nurse smiled at him again. “I know you’ve had a nasty shock, but you’ll be able to see your dad again before you know it.”

Swallowing again, Kurt nodded jerkily and the nurse returned to her desk. More footsteps approached him and Miss. Pillsbury sat down next to him; evidently she had been hovering nearby while he’d spoken to the nurse. 

“Do you want me to wait with you, Kurt?” she asked softly.

Kurt shook his head.

“It might be better if you had someone to sit with you,” she offered again.

Kurt shook his head. “It’s okay; I’d rather be alone.” He didn’t want someone he didn’t really know hanging around feeling sorry for him; it would just make him feel worse.

“If you’re sure…” she said hesitantly. She watched him for a moment, clearly waiting in case he changed his mind. When he didn’t, she rummaged through her purse and handed him a card with her contact details on it. “Let me know if you change your mind or if there’s anything else I can do.” Closing her purse, she got to her feet. “I’m sure your dad will be fine,” she added, before nodding her head and walking away, leaving Kurt alone on a plastic chair waiting for his dad to come out of surgery.

Sitting staring into the little cup of water, Kurt worried. All of the reassurances and facts of success rates of surgery meant nothing to him as he sat and waited. Until he saw his dad alive and well with his own eyes he couldn’t believe in any of the assurances that he would be okay. His dad was somewhere in this hospital, unconscious, and with a problem to his heart; anything could happen. Doctors couldn’t save everyone; he knew that all too well. 

He sat there for what felt like hours, his heart thudding wildly in his chest, his stomach churning with nausea, and fear twisting low in his abdomen, making him curl in on himself slightly to help ease the pain. Panic clawed through him, constricting his throat and chest. He’d already lost one parent, he couldn’t lose another; this couldn’t happen to him.

There was a clock on the wall above the nurse’s desk. He glanced up at it at regular intervals in a compulsive action which became more frequent the more time went by. As the time passed, he grew increasingly anxious, inadvertently imagining all the ways things could go wrong: complications in surgery, the procedure failing, his dad not waking up from the anaesthesia. It was hard to believe he’d been sitting in class only a few hours ago with his biggest worry being completing a French essay on time. It all seemed so trivial now. How could he have sat there worrying about a stupid essay when his dad was being rushed to hospital?

The waiting room with its white tiled floor and plastic chairs blurred and Kurt’s nose and throat blocked up. He wrapped his arms around his middle and hunched over further, willing himself not to cry. He didn’t want to cry in a hospital waiting room where other people with pale, strained faces also sat. He didn’t want the nurse to come back over and start trying to reassure him with words of comfort that fell on deaf ears. He wanted to be alone when he fell apart.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears threatening to well up. As he tried to take deep, calming breaths, footsteps squeaked on the floor nearby. He opened his eyes and jerked his head up, thinking it was someone with news about his dad.

Carole stood in front of him with red eyes and a pinched face. She had clearly come straight from work, her work clothes blotted with tear stains here and there. Her distressed expression softened when Kurt looked up at her.

“Oh, honey,” she murmured, sitting down next to him and resting a hand on his shoulder.

That was all it took for Kurt’s weak resolve to break. He dissolved into tears, his face crumpling and his body folding in on itself. He buried his face in his hands, blocking his view of the sterile waiting room and its clock counting down the time towards complications and unsuccessful surgery. Distantly, he heard Carole say something in a soothing voice, but he couldn’t make out the words. Her arm wrapped around his shoulders and he slumped against her, using her comfort as a pillar of strength to stop him from falling into hysteria. She held him as he cried, his body wracked with sobs and his lungs heaving for air. 

Once he started crying it was difficult to stop, but eventually his tears dried up and he was left feeling numb once again. He felt hollow and exposed, like his insides had been scooped clean out of him and dumped out on display in front of him. The crying had also sapped his energy and his face felt raw where he’d rubbed at it to dry the tears away. He leaned against Carole, drained and vulnerable, feeling as though he were floating in the aftermath of some strange, horrible nightmare. Carole rubbed his back and re-iterated what the nurse had told him earlier about how safe and effective the procedure was and how much better his dad would be after having it. She was interrupted by the arrival of a doctor wearing scrubs and a genial smile.

“Are you the relatives of Burt Hummel?” he asked.

Kurt scrambled to sit upright, his pulse hammering loudly behind his ears. “Yes, we are.”

“I’m Dr. Heyward, the endovascular surgeon who performed the stent procedure on Mr. Hummel,” he introduced. 

Kurt nodded impatiently – he just wanted to know how his dad was.

“You’ll be pleased to hear the procedure was successful and everything went as planned. The stent has opened up the blocked artery and blood flow to the heart is normal again. We’ll need to keep him in hospital for a day or two for observations, but after that he’ll be free to go home. He’s still a bit groggy from the sedation, but you can see him now. Just be aware he may drift in and out of sleep for a while as the drugs wear off.”

Kurt almost started crying again with relief. He wouldn’t be able to truly believe his dad was going to be okay until he saw him and spoke to him, but hearing the doctor say that was enough to alleviate his fear. Hearing Carole thank the doctor, he smiled and echoed her sentiment, wanting the pleasantries out of the way so he could see his dad. A nurse he didn’t notice earlier then stepped forward and led the way through to one of the wards where his dad was lying in a bed hooked up to a drip and several beeping machines. He also had an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Kurt’s eyes flooded with tears again as he took in his dad’s pale face and still body.

The nurse set another chair by the bed so both Kurt and Carole could sit down, before leaving, telling them to let her know if they needed anything. 

As soon as she was gone, Kurt hurried forward the last few feet between him and the bed and took hold of his dad’s hand, tears leaking down his face.

“Dad? I’m here, Dad – can you hear me?”

His dad groaned quietly and turned his head towards Kurt, struggling to open his eyes. Almost as soon as his eyes opened they drooped closed, the sedative drugs too strong for him to fight.

“Are you feeling okay?”

His dad made a noise Kurt took for affirmation and Kurt squeezed his hand, sagging down into the chair Carole had pushed up behind him.

“You scared me,” Kurt whispered, swiping at the tears gathering under his jaw with his free hand. “You really scared me.” He stared tearfully as his dad’s breath evened out with sleep. 

Carole placed a hand on his shoulder and rubbed at it soothingly. “It’ll probably take a few hours for your dad to sleep off the drugs – do you want to go get something to eat or drink? You must be hungry.”

Kurt shook his head. He knew it must have been a while since he’d last eaten or drank anything, but he didn’t feel anything beyond worry for his dad, and he didn’t want to leave his bedside any time soon – what if his dad woke up while he was gone?

“I’ll bring you back something,” Carole said, patting Kurt’s shoulder and then leaving him alone with his dad.

For a while after she left Kurt sat and listened to the monitors beep, still holding his dad’s hand. He found the constant, rhythmic beeping reassuring, continued evidence that his dad really was alive and that his heart was still beating.

He sniffed and wiped at the tears clinging to his cheeks. “You scared me so much,” he whispered, watching the steady rise and fall of his dad’s chest. “I thought- For a moment I thought-” He swallowed thickly, just managing to hold back a fresh wave of tears. “I can’t lose you, dad,” he said, clutching his dad’s hand tighter. “I can’t.”


	7. Chapter 7

Blaine was worried.

It had been several weeks since the last time he’d spoken to Kurt and worry had settled in the bottom of his gut in a heavyweight he carried around with him each day. He wouldn’t be worrying if he hadn’t shared any dreams with Kurt in that time, but he had done; he’d shared three dreams with him in the last few weeks, yet he hadn’t been able to speak to him. For some reason, in all three of those dreams Kurt had vanished within seconds of Blaine arriving in the dream. One time Blaine had called out Kurt’s name and started running towards him, but before he could reach him Kurt had looked over his shoulder at him and then vanished without saying a word. Blaine didn’t understand it.

At first he worried that he’d done something wrong, something to upset Kurt. He spent hours one Sunday thinking back over all the dreams they had shared, trying to remember if he’d said or done something that could possibly have upset Kurt. To his frustration and mild relief, he’d been unable to think of anything. This quickly resolved into fear that their connection was fading. Feeling frantic, he’d searched through the Internet for any record of this, scrolling through countless web pages and reading dozens of articles, finding nothing to suggest this could happen. According to all of the articles, once you travelled with someone multiple, successive times it was guaranteed you would travel with them again, even if it was months down the line or if you travelled with someone else in between. According to recent evidence, oneironautics travelled with their first dream partner for life, and the chances of your first partner being the sole person you shared dreams with was greatly increased if you shared your first three or four travelling dreams with them. Though Blaine was mostly convinced by this, he couldn’t help a lingering doubt from seeding in the back of his mind: the slim chance that he and Kurt were an exception.

It was only after exhausting both of these concerns that he considered Kurt’s health as a potential cause. He then felt horribly guilty that it had taken him so long to think of this. Kurt might have been sick or really struggling with something in his personal life while Blaine had spent days worrying about petty, selfish reasons for their lack of communication. Of course, there were many reasons behind why Kurt could keep waking up from their shared dreams, one of which could be that he was on some new treatment that was actually effective. Blaine knew Kurt had said that his parents were more than accepting of his decision to not seek a cure, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t changed his mind or decided to give in to his family’s requests. He had dismissed this theory quickly: if there was a new treatment that was even remotely effective his own parents would have heard about it and would be trying to talk him into taking it. There had to be some other reason behind it.

As the days went by, Blaine started sleeping poorly. He woke often through the night, jerking awake whenever Kurt disappeared from a dream or he became aware of his absence. His lucid dreams also became more tiring and strenuous to be in, some of them more like nightmares than dreams. In them he found himself in stressful or confusing situations, making him feel strained or under pressure until he woke with a pounding heart and gasping for breath. Most nights it felt like he’d barely slept at all and he found it increasingly difficult to keep a smile on his face and be his usual self. 

It didn’t take long for his parents to pick up on his increased tiredness. He went through a dinner one night under complete scrutiny and then he was questioned as soon as the plates were cleared away. There had been no arguing with them that he wasn’t any more tired than normal, all of his protests fell on deaf ears. They brought out the old argument again, accusing him of being irresponsible and deliberately harming his own health. 

“How do you expect to succeed in life if you keep going like this, Blaine?” his dad asked, his voice raised in indignation, like he couldn’t believe a son of his could be so stupid. “How can you get into a good college and get a good job when you’re walking around half asleep?”

His mom nodded along in agreement to her husband’s words. “This is why you should be on trials and testing treatments. You need to find something that works as soon as possible so you can get your life back on track.”

Now it was Blaine’s turn to be indignant. He screwed up his face in annoyance. “Get my life back on track? When has it been off-track?” He counted points off on his fingers. “My grades are perfect, I do several extra-curricular activities, I ace all of my piano exams, and I do volunteer work. What else should I be doing?”

His dad’s stern, disappointed expression didn’t ease any. “This is only high school, Blaine; it only gets harder from here.”

“And you’re struggling as it is,” his mom added.

Blaine’s indignant frown deepened. “Since when was I-”

“We don’t want to see you miss out on your potential on a silly act of rebellion,” his mom interrupted.

Blaine gritted his teeth, his lower jaw jutting forwards as he fought the urge to scream. “This is not rebellion. I just want a break from all of this treatment stuff. It takes more out of me than the dreams do!” Folding his arms across his chest, Blaine held his stubborn stance, glaring at his parents. He knew he was being difficult, but he wasn’t going to back down on this. 

His parents exchanged a look, both of them looking annoyed and frustrated. After a moment, his dad turned to face him.

“Just think about what you’re doing here, about the decision you’ve made. Think about how it will affect your future, not just the present. You might be managing now, but it’ll be a different story when you’re in college. You could miss out on being part of a clinical trial that finds an effective treatment – and you know how long it takes drugs to become freely available in such a situation.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why you’ve had a sudden change of heart about this, but you’re making a big mistake, Blaine.”

After one last stern look at Blaine, his dad left the kitchen, heading through to the adjoining living room. His mom watched him go, before turning her gaze back on Blaine.

“I know we can’t force you to go back on treatment, but we will keep trying to make you see sense. I won’t stand by and watch you ruin your life.”

With that his mom followed his dad into the living room, leaving Blaine standing in the middle of the kitchen, wishing that, for once in his life, his parents would listen to what he wanted. He hoped Kurt would come back soon so there wouldn’t be such a bright spotlight shining on his condition.

Almost one month after their last conversation, Blaine’s wish was granted. He was standing on a hillside in amongst tall, swaying grasses and weeds, the ground uneven in some places and the occasional rabbit hole visible. The hill looked out over a thick canopy of trees, their dark green foliage only allowing the roofs of a few buildings to peek through. Strikingly, in an area straight ahead of him where the trees thinned slightly, the top of a Ferris wheel rose above the vegetation, shining in the sun coming through the patchy clouds. 

He sensed Kurt’s presence immediately and hope flooded him, making his senses extra sensitive to any sign of another person. His muscles tensed with anticipation, readying him to run should Kurt try to disappear again. He searched the hillside frantically and spotted Kurt sitting on the edge of the slope, looking out over the view.

Heart pounding, Blaine walked over to join him, saying nothing as he lowered himself down on the thick grass beside him.

For a moment Kurt didn’t speak either and they sat in silence staring out over the trees, watching the Ferris wheel light up and grow dull as the sun appeared and disappeared behind the swiftly moving clouds. 

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said eventually. He didn’t look at Blaine, not shifting his gaze from the view before them. Blaine looked over at him, admiring the way the patchy sunlight intermittently lit up his profile and the swoop of his hair with a stunning golden glow and cast his features in a study of contrasting shadows.

“I know you kept trying to talk to me and I kept leaving,” Kurt continued, his hands fidgeting with a stalk of grass he’d plucked from nearby. “I must have made you worry – I’m sorry.”

Blaine waited, wanting to hear Kurt’s explanation. Kurt’s behavior and demeanor was worrying him and the feeling that something was wrong settled in his stomach in a cold, hard lump.

Kurt inhaled deeply. “My dad had a heart attack.”

Blaine felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach. The air left his lungs in a whoosh and his belly filled with a painful hollowness. All that time he’d been fretting over what he’d done wrong and whether they were getting different dream partners, when Kurt had been going through something as horrific as that. He felt sick with guilt. 

“I’m so sorry, Kurt; that’s awful,” he said sincerely. He wished he could lay a comforting hand on Kurt’s arm, but he wasn’t sure it would be welcome. Kurt still hadn’t looked at him. He hesitated, not wanting to ask, but needing to know. “Is he-”

“He’s fine now,” Kurt replied, knowing what Blaine had been asking. “He’s perfectly healthy again; it was just a scare.” He swallowed, the bump of his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I haven’t been able to sleep properly since it happened. At first I was scared he wouldn’t recover as well as everyone kept telling me he would, and then when he got home from the hospital I was constantly on tenterhooks, waiting for it to happen again.” He paused to take a settling breath. “I planned a healthy diet for him to follow, made sure he was doing the exercise the doctor recommended, took on extra shifts at the garage to stop my dad from working too much and overexerting himself, and I became stressed, I guess. I went to bed each night with my head buzzing with everything I had to do next day and how to fit caring for my dad around school. I know Carole was more than capable of doing most of it, but I needed to be the one doing it all. I had to be sure my dad was being healthy and taking care of himself, otherwise I would worry. 

“I couldn’t sleep because I was worrying so much and when I did eventually fall asleep I would wake soon afterwards to worry some more. It’s only recently that it’s gotten easier.”

Blaine’s eyes ran over Kurt again and this time he noticed the exhausted slump to his shoulders, the smudged dark rings beneath his eyes, and the dull, pale tinge to his skin. Yet even though it was affecting him so, Blaine had to admire Kurt’s strength and commitment to his family; it wasn’t just anyone who could manage everything Kurt had been through. The resilience was incredible.

"I’m so sorry, Kurt,” Blaine said softly. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you, especially since your mom-” He cut himself off abruptly, hoping he hadn’t crossed a line and made things worse. He wanted to kick himself for being so careless. 

Finally, Kurt turned to look at him. To Blaine’s relief, he didn’t look angry or distraught, but grateful, smiling at Blaine through his weariness. He placed his hand on top of Blaine’s where it rested on his knee and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Thank you. These past few weeks have been hard, but I’ve had Carole and my friends for support.”

“I wish I could have helped,” Blaine whispered, lowering his gaze to their hands. He twisted his hand around so he could return Kurt’s soft grip. “I worried about you when you kept disappearing before we could talk.” He looked up at Kurt from under his lashes, watching as he licked his lips, his gaze also trained on their joined hands.

“Maybe- Maybe we could keep in contact instead of waiting until we meet again,” Kurt suggested hesitantly.

Blaine snapped his head up to look at him. “You mean like, swap phone numbers?”

Kurt shrugged. “Well, yeah…” He met Blaine’s eyes. “If that’s something you’d want…”

“Oh, it is,” Blaine assured him hastily. He did really want to be able to talk to Kurt whenever he wanted to, but it was something he’d never considered before; he had just never thought it would be possible for them to communicate outside of this space they met in. 

Kurt smiled, suddenly looking more cheerful and alert. “Great!”

He recited his phone number and Blaine relayed his own, before realising something and looking around in dismay. “I haven’t got anything to write your number down on.”

Kurt’s face fell for the briefest second. “Me either… We’ll just have to remember them.”

With a soft smile, Blaine asked Kurt about his Glee club and from there they caught up on everything that had happened in the last month. Blaine didn’t share the latest spat he’d had with his parents, not wanting to draw sympathy to himself after what Kurt had been through – was still going through. As Kurt talked about his increased involvement at his dad’s garage, Blaine realised that they were still holding hands. Warmth spilled through his veins at the reminder and he smiled as he glanced down at their joined hands. The comfort of Kurt’s hand in his own was like that of a well-worn, warm sweater on a cold day: it was easy to become used to it and forget what it was like without it, but every now and then, like a flurry of cold air, he was reminded and it sent a buzz of comfort and gentle heat through him. He was too at peace to wonder about their clasped hands, to question why they had not let go when the difficult conversation had ended. He just held Kurt’s hand.

Blaine laughed as Kurt imitated his dad’s reaction to a salad they had for dinner one night, feeling an extra spark of happiness that Kurt was talking about his dad with a more light-hearted attitude. He went to say something in response when he felt a tugging sensation somewhere deep inside his body and the next thing he knew Kurt was gone and he was lying in his bed with his empty hand stretched out across the cool sheets, a phone number lingering in his head.

 

~ * ~

 

Kurt received his first text from Blaine the morning after they’d exchanged phone numbers in a dream.

He was on his way to his second period class, weaving his way through swarms of people, none of them courteous enough to change their path for him, when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. His immediate reaction was fear, the feeling slipping down his spine like someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of his shirt, until the more rational side of his brain reminded him that if something had happened to his dad he wouldn’t be informed through a text message.

He ducked out of the streams of student traffic heading down the hall and stood against the wall, taking a second or two to calm himself down. He’d been on edge since Miss. Pillsbury had called him out of class last month and he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling, despite watching his dad get healthier every day. Every phone call could be bringing bad news, every arrival home could lead to him finding his worst nightmare – he needed to stop imagining the worst all the time, but it was proving difficult to do.

With his hands only slightly shaking he pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen, expecting to see some inane text from Rachel. His heart skipped a beat, something in his belly squirmed pleasurably, and his face lit up in a delighted smile at the name on the screen.

Blaine.

He’d entered Blaine’s number into his phone that morning having woken with it flashing like a beacon in his head. Being in contact with Blaine wasn’t something he was hesitant about; he was sure other travellers contacted and even met with each other outside of their dreams. His only uncertainty had been over whether Blaine wanted this as well, and knowing he did left him feeling only excitement.

He opened the text with his heart pounding somewhere in the region of his throat.

_‘So I woke up this morning with your number in my head – how’s that for a crazy dream?’_

A large, unabashed grin spread across Kurt’s face. A passing jock in his trademark letterman jacket sneered at him, but Kurt didn’t even notice, too wrapped up in that little message on his phone. He imagined Blaine writing it, a small smile tugging at one corner of his mouth as he tapped the message into his phone. Maybe he had been in school, leaning against his locker or walking along a hall; maybe he had still been at home, still in his sleep clothes and with his hair free from the gel he used to slick it down with. Not knowing where Blaine lived he couldn’t know which was more probable.

 _‘That’s odd; I got your number the same way! We must have had the same dream,’_ Kurt texted back.

He felt a small rush of nervous excitement when he sent the text and he resisted the urge to stand and stare at his phone until Blaine replied. Instead, he pocketed his phone and continued to class, rushing a little to make it on time. 

Blaine texted him back not long after his class started. He fought the temptation to read the reply, knowing this teacher was particularly strict about cell phone use during class. With his mind on the message sitting in his phone in his pocket, he found it hard to stay focussed during the lesson and spent a lot of time checking the clock and counting down the minutes until class ended. The moment class ended he threw all of his things into his bag and all but sprinted out the door, grabbing his phone as he went.

_‘They say great minds think alike – perhaps that encompasses dreams as well? Also, I don’t know what time zone you’re in, but I hope you’re not texting me in class, mister.’_

A giddy, fizzing happiness made Kurt’s hands tremble slightly as he tapped out a reply. He could get used to speaking to Blaine like this. He didn’t know how he could have ever been content with only talking to him in dreams.

_‘I don’t particularly want to dance around the subject, so I’ll just say it. I’m from Ohio – Lima to be exact.’_

_‘Barnstable, Massachusetts. So we are in the same time zone then! Why did it take us texting each other to say where we live? We must have talked about everything but that.’_

Kurt texted back and forth with Blaine throughout the rest of the day, sending his replies mostly during the walk between classes but occasionally hiding his phone beneath the desk.

It wasn’t until he was sitting in the choir room for Glee club at the end of the day that someone remarked on his texting. Rachel shot him several pointed looks as he texted instead of giving his full, undivided attention to what their choir director, Mr. Schuester, was saying. Once he started passing sheet music out Rachel turned to scowl at Kurt.

“You know, this is the reason we didn’t win Nationals. I’m the only one who listens to Mr. Schue! I know I’m talented, but unfortunately our performance can’t consist entirely of my stellar solos,” she said loudly, earning her an eye roll from Quinn, who was sitting in the row in front of them.

Kurt chose not to respond to her; replying would only entice her to continue ranting and bragging. He put his phone back in his pocket and accepted the pile of music from Sam. 

Rachel sniffed in huffy annoyance as he passed her the music.

“Who are you texting anyway?”

Kurt hesitated, trying to weigh up whether it would be better to just tell her or to leave her guessing. It didn’t take him long to decide the insistent pestering to know who it was would annoy him. Besides, it wasn’t like he had anything to hide.

“It’s Blaine.” He shifted in his chair as the intensity of her gaze increased. “You know, the guy I share dreams with.”

Rachel bit her lip, her glare dissolving into a worried frown. “Is that something you should be doing? Is there not some kind of rule about it? Like, what happens in your dreams stays in your dreams?”

Kurt had suspected she may react this way; it would either have been this or her wanting to know all of the details of his and Blaine’s dreams and text messages. He understood where her concern was coming from, but her worry was caused by a lack of understanding and insight into oneironautics. If she had the condition, he knew she would want to learn all she could about her dream partner and would most definitely want to contact them outside of dreams. In fact, knowing Rachel, she would probably take it another step and stalk them on social media.

He shook his head jerkily, like a dog getting rid of a fly. “No, people do it all the time. Some people meet up and become friends with their dream partners.”

“Is that what you want with Blaine?” Rachel asked shrewdly, lowering her voice as Mr. Schuester started speaking again.

A warm flush spilled down Kurt’s neck and up across his cheeks. He hastily looked away from Rachel and stared determinedly at Mr. Schuester, who was gesturing to the sheet of music he was holding as he spoke.

“Maybe – I don’t know,” he said as nonchalantly as he could. Feeling Rachel’s gaze back on him, he glanced sideways at her and huffed at her raised eyebrow. “I don’t even know where he lives!” he blurted weakly, his lie as obvious as the choir room’s grand piano.

Rachel shook her head almost sadly at him, disappointed in his pathetic attempt at lying. “Even if that wasn’t a blatant lie, we both know that distance wouldn’t be too much of an issue – isn’t it, like, impossible to share dreams with someone who is too far away?”

“I wouldn’t say impossible…” Kurt muttered. There had been extensive research on the distance between dream partners and although it looked as though you couldn’t be too far away from someone you shared dreams with, no maximum distance of separation had been determined. “But, no, Blaine lives in Massachusetts, so it’s not too far, I guess.”

Mr. Schuester had them singing some of the song he’d passed out the music for then and Rachel didn’t get a chance to respond until Glee was over.

“Just be careful, okay?” she said as they stood up and followed the others out of the door. “It’s all fair enough seeing Blaine in your dreams and texting him, but if you decide to meet him-”

Realising where she was going, Kurt had to hold back a derisive snort. “Rachel, it’s not like he’s someone I’ve only communicated with online. I don’t have to worry Blaine’s actually some sixty year-old or a mass-murderer, it’s not like that.”

Hitching her bag strap further up her shoulder, Rachel huffed, looking a little annoyed that she’d been snubbed. “Whatever. You still have to be careful.”

“I am, Rachel,” Kurt assured her. “I always am.”

Three nights later, Kurt wasn’t as careful as he should have been.

He had one of his bad dreams; a horrifying experience that he didn’t manage to break free of quickly enough. It was the first one he’d had since meeting Blaine; all of his other lucid dreams since then had been pleasant and easy to wake up from, not the nightmare this had been.

It was almost midday when he woke, and not only was he panting and sweating like he’d just run a marathon, but he was late for school, so late that he wasn’t even sure if it was actually worth going. When his heart had slowed to a more normal rate and the tremoring in his limbs had ceased, he sat up in bed and reached for his phone, swiping it off of his nightstand. 

He’d received two texts while he’d been asleep as well as notifications that he’d missed his alarm going off. Clearing the latter, he clicked through his messages and paused, his thumb hovering over the two unread messages: one from his dad and one from Blaine. Making the decision to save Blaine’s message for last, he opened the one from his dad.

_‘Let me know when you wake up. I tried to wake you this morning before I left for work, but couldn’t. I guess you were dreaming. Just call me when you read this so I know you’re okay.’_

Kurt rubbed wearily at his forehead. He hated that his dad was most likely worrying about him right now – the extra stress was the last thing his dad needed. The fear that there was always a chance Kurt could fall asleep and not wake up for a long time was the worst part of his condition. He obeyed his dad’s request and called him quickly, letting him know he was awake and all was well. The relief in his dad’s voice was palpable.

After ending his call with his dad, Kurt felt even worse than he had done when he’d first woken up. Heaving a deep sigh, he opened Blaine’s text. 

_‘Good morning! I hope you slept well :)’_

With his mind still partially in the weird, disorienting state of dreaming, his body still recovering from the nightmare, and concern for his dad gnawing at him, Kurt tapped out a reply to Blaine.

_‘Or not such a good morning… Awful dream – took too long to wake up from it and now I’ve missed most of school. On top of that, my dad has been worrying about me since he couldn’t wake me this morning. I wish you had been there, then this whole situation wouldn’t seem so bad; it would be brighter, somehow. It’s a pity we don’t share all of our dreams…’_

He hit send – and regretted it almost immediately.

Groaning at his own stupidity, he threw his phone aside and buried his face in his hands. He hoped Blaine would recognise the text for what it was: a rashly sent message from someone disoriented and frustrated by a dream, and not the confessions of someone who was possibly, maybe, developing a crush on him.


	8. Chapter 8

Kurt didn’t go to school that day. Instead, he called McKinley and explained what had happened. He wasn’t all too convinced the receptionist believed him despite the school being well aware he was an oneironaut, but she assured him she would let all of his teachers know and they would email him about the work he had missed. 

With a stifled yawn, he headed downstairs and into the kitchen where he spent a good few minutes looking at the clock and trying to decide what the best thing to eat would be. In the end, the thought of chocolate chip pancakes was too appealing to pass up. He felt like he deserved a sweet, comforting meal after the night he’d had.

He deliberately set his phone down on the far end of the counter and got to work on making his brunch. He put far more effort than was necessary into chopping fruits to go with the pancakes, cutting strawberries and bananas into precise little pieces to try and distract himself from looking at his phone. He even read some of his dad’s newspaper while he was eating to keep from obsessing over the careless text he’d sent Blaine. 

The _ping_ signalling Blaine’s reply sounded just as Kurt started clearing up. Biting his lip, he looked over at his phone, watching it until the lit-up screen faded to black again. With his jaw set in determination, Kurt made himself wash the dishes, clean the splash of syrup off the kitchen table, and tidy everything away before he picked up his phone. 

_‘If we shared all of our dreams I can guarantee you would not be thinking like that. That sucks about your dream, though; it’s happened to me many times. I take it you’re not going to school?’_

Closing his eyes and tilting his head back, Kurt breathed a sigh of relief. He was glad Blaine was perceptive and seemed to be able to gauge what sort of mood he was in and knew when not to look too deeply into his words. Kurt was just glad he hadn’t made things awkward between them.

The emails from his teachers started coming in as he tapped out a quick reply to Blaine. Before getting started on the work they had sent him, he headed back upstairs and took a shower. Then, dressed in comfy sweatpants and a t-shirt, he settled down at his desk to do some work.

His phone buzzed.

_‘You know, I sometimes wonder if doing school work from home all the time would yield better results. It would probably get lonely quite quickly, but you don’t have to deal with all the shit that being at school entails.’_

He smiled as he sent Blaine a reply, his math textbook temporarily forgotten.

_‘Not having to encounter most of the students at my school and some of the teachers would be a definite plus, and it would be a lot easier organizing my own time and not having to worry about my irregular sleeping habits. But I would miss seeing my friends and Glee club and even the familiarity of it, in some strange way.’_

Setting his phone aside, Kurt tried to focus on his work. He really wanted to get everything he was missing that day done before tomorrow so he wouldn’t have to play catch-up, but it was proving hard when Blaine was occupying most of his mind. He knew he could tell Blaine he was busy and Blaine would respect that and stop texting him so he wouldn’t be distracted, but Kurt couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was enjoying the conversation far too much – he liked Blaine far too much.

His phone buzzed again and he scooped it up with an anticipatory smile.

_‘I know what you’re saying: I would certainly miss the nice, comfortable, secure bubble I’ve got at my school. We’re somewhat sheltered here and given a strict, set path to follow that makes life relatively uncomplicated for a while. Once we graduate it’s all our own choices and there’s no more being nudged down a specific path. It’s all more real and frightening being out of high school. I suppose that’s why they tell us to enjoy it while it lasts.’_

_‘Speaking of graduation, what are your plans for the future?’_ Kurt replied.

It was a question he’d wanted to ask Blaine for a little while now. He couldn’t help but wish there was a possibility of their futures intertwining more physically, and for them to end up in the same city, or at least close by. He knew Blaine loved music and theatre as he did, but he didn’t know if that was something he wanted to pursue as a career or if he was going down another route entirely.

This time he didn’t set his phone down while he waited for Blaine’s reply. Instead, he twirled the phone in his hand and stared absently down at his notebook.

It buzzed in his hand.

_‘I want to study music. I’m not sure whether I want to go into performance or teaching as I love performing and the push to better myself that it drives, but I also love working with kids. Something to think about in the near future, I suppose. As for where I want to go to do that, I’m not too sure. Juilliard would be the ultimate dream. What about yourself?’_

Kurt took a minute to re-read Blaine’s text. Juilliard – Blaine was thinking (dreaming) about New York, just like he was. It was a small ray of hope, a tiny spark of light, but he would cling to it. There was a chance this didn’t have to be all in his head or via the phone.

_‘I definitely want to go into fashion, or perhaps theatre, but I also really love photography – maybe I could major in one and have the other as a minor? It’s been my goal to move to NYC after I graduate and my friend Rachel wants to come, so I’m hoping to get into a college there. Really, I just want to get out of Ohio.’_

They’d already discussed Kurt’s desire to leave Ohio and its small town mentalities behind. Despite not wanting to move too far away from his family, he needed to get out of Ohio to somewhere he wouldn’t be so heavily discriminated against. New York, with its equality, bright lights, and diverse culture, seemed like the perfect option.

_‘And you’ll get out of Ohio. I know it. If Kurt Hummel wants something that badly he will do his damnedest to get it. Anyway, sorry, I’ve got to run – Warbler practice!’_

Setting his phone aside, Kurt reluctantly pulled his books back towards him and settled down to work. His conversation with Blaine had left him feeling a bit more rejuvenated and the last lingering memories of the nightmare had disappeared sometime when he’d been texting. Catching up on a day’s missed work didn’t seem so bad anymore, though he would have much preferred to still have Blaine’s company.

With the distraction of Blaine’s texts gone, he started going through his work at a pretty good pace. It was terrible that Blaine had such an effect on him, but he couldn’t seem to keep him off his mind and he could feel the first tendrils of Blaine curling into his heart, ready to grow and flourish there. Blaine had well and truly embedded himself in Kurt’s life.

The exciting feelings of sparking connection and fondness grew over the next few weeks. They continued to text regularly, talking about all of the little things and telling each other whatever stray, random thoughts had entered their minds. Blaine called him one night and they fell into the habit of talking on the phone before going to bed. It was unlike any other friendship Kurt had experienced. He had thought he might have been feeling a bit exasperated and frustrated with talking to Blaine so much on top of sharing some dreams with him, but he didn’t. If it had been anyone else he would have been trying to put some space between them by now, but with Blaine it was different, and that wasn’t only because of the large crush he was harbouring for him.

One night during their routinely phone call, Kurt broached a subject that had been lingering in the back of his mind for a while, one that he knew could either lead to excitement or painful disagreement: the two of them meeting.

He waited until they had finished talking about Blaine’s afternoon volunteering at a local children’s theatre group to mention it.

“Blaine,” he began tentatively. “Have you ever thought about us meeting? Outside of our dreams, I mean.” Before Blaine could say anything, he added hastily, “I know we don’t live all that close, but summer vacation starts in a week and I have enough money saved up from working extra hours at the garage to pay for a flight to Massachusetts. It’s the perfect time for us to do this.”

His heart raced and he gripped his phone tightly in his hand, pressing it to his ear so firmly he could hear the small scratching sound it made against the side of his head over the top of the noise of the connection. He swallowed nervously.

“I would love to meet you,” Blaine enthused, his voice sounding slightly breathy with what Kurt thought might be relief. “I’ve thought about it a lot since we started texting, but I wasn’t sure whether you would want to.”

“Oh, I want to,” Kurt reiterated. “I definitely want to.”

“I’m glad,” Blaine sighed, and Kurt could hear the smile in his voice. “I can’t wait to see you in person. Dreams are different; you’re there but not really there.”

Kurt beamed at his empty bedroom. He was so relieved they were on the same page. He’d always felt that he and Blaine were connected through more than the dreams and were on the same wavelength with a number of things, but he’d still worried this would be something they had opposing views on. He was so excited, he wanted to plan it all now, to set a date in stone so he could mark it on his calendar and know it was really, truly happening. Rationally, he knew it would take a while to plan. Aside from the basic organization and travel plans, they would both have to inform their parents about this and Kurt wasn’t sure how either of their families would take it.

Blaine hummed in consideration. “I’m not sure when you’re available, but you could visit early August. My family always goes away for a few weeks later in the month, so anytime other than that would be fine, but-” He hesitated for a brief moment. “I want to see you as soon as possible – I’d fly out to Ohio today if I could.”

Kurt’s stomach squirmed in delighted pleasure. “I could probably manage early August,” he said. “I don’t think I’d have much restriction on how long I could stay; I’d just have to be back before my dad needed help at the garage. His workers always take vacation around that time and I usually put in extra hours to help cover.”

Kurt could almost hear Blaine nodding.

“Of course,” Blaine replied. “Talk with your dad and we’ll work out a time that gives you the maximum stay over here.” There was a short pause. “I really can’t wait to meet you, Kurt,” he said sincerely.

Closing his eyes, Kurt smiled. He wished he could see what Blaine looked like at that moment, what the expression on his face had been when he’d said those words. He could guess, hope, dream that Blaine’s eyes had been warm honey, his smile soft, and his expression wistful, but he couldn’t know for sure. He could only imagine it.

“Me, either,” Kurt said. He reluctantly checked the time. “I’d better go,” he sighed. “I’m working at the garage tomorrow and I need to be up early.”

“Okay – I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Goodnight, Kurt.”

With one corner of his mouth curled up in a wistful smile, Kurt pressed his phone closer to his ear. “Goodnight.”

The prospect of meeting Blaine got Kurt through a, frankly, shit last week of school. With another school year winding down, most of his classes were a waste of time and the bullies seemed hell bent on making up for not seeing him over the summer. The thought of seeing Blaine’s smile in person kept his spirits up even when he was thrown into a dumpster round the back of the school cafeteria that had been deliberately filled with out-of-date yogurt.

Once school had officially ended for summer, Kurt and Blaine started planning Kurt’s visit to Massachusetts more seriously. They researched flight times and compared costs, jotting down itineraries and pencilling in possible things they could do. Kurt also started thinking about getting the green light from his dad; practicing what he would say and trying to decide when would be best to tell him. Knowing his dad, it wasn’t something he could do offhandedly.

Shortly after summer vacation started, two days after Rachel’s end-of-school party that was only prevented from being completely lame by Noah Puckerman sneaking in a stash of vodka, Kurt shared another dream with Blaine.

Kurt arrived in the hallway of what appeared to be some beautiful, old building. The ceilings were high above his head, decorated with intricate cornicing, and the floors were a glossy marble beneath the thick rug running a strip down the center of the hall. Tall wooden windows let in generous amounts of sunlight, making the wooden benches and window seats gleam. A little further down the hall from him the area became brighter and he could see the black banister of a staircase curling out of sight. Kurt walked towards it.

The hallways opened out onto a stunning curved staircase with white marble steps. Kurt paused at the top and tipped his head back to see the source of the bright light: a large, domed window set into the ceiling with black detailing. It was one of the most beautiful places Kurt had ever been.

Sensing Blaine’s presence, Kurt tore his gaze away from the domed glass above him and looked down the staircase to see Blaine standing halfway down it, looking up at him with a small amused smile on his face.

“I see you like my school,” he commented when Kurt reached him.

Kurt frowned, wondering if he was missing something. “Your school?”

Blaine nodded. “Yes, this is Dalton Academy.” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know why I’m here when I just finished for the summer.”

Kurt smoothed his hand over the banister railing. He’d known Blaine went to a prep school, but he’d always pictured him strolling around some edgy, ultra-modern building, all sleekness and right angles, not the halls of Hogwarts.

“I can’t believe you go to school here,” Kurt said, looking back up to the glass ceiling.

Blaine took hold of his hand and tugged on it gently. “Let’s sit down here.”

Kurt followed Blaine down the stairs and over to a small wooden bench seat curved to fit against the wall under the staircase. They still held hands as they sat: Kurt drinking in the sights of Blaine’s school, Blaine watching Kurt’s reaction to it all.

“I can’t imagine what it must be like to go to a school like this,” Kurt remarked. “Being in such a beautiful setting must be incredible, but I’m not sure I’d like the uniforms.”

Blaine laughed softly. “The blazers are alright.” Looking around at the polished floors and framed paintings on the walls, he shrugged. “You get used to the setting just like at any other school. It’s the atmosphere that’s the best part.”

Intrigued, Kurt looked at Blaine. “How so?”

“Everyone’s friendly – or, at least, pleasant – towards each other. The zero tolerance for bullying may help with that, but I also think the relatively small number of us and community of the school play a big role.”

A faint throb of wistfulness pulsed through Kurt – what he would give for an effective zero tolerance policy at McKinley. Though, mentally, he’d become better at dealing with the bullies, there was no way for him to protect against the physical effects. 

Kurt let his gaze wander over the space before them. “I maybe don’t have the atmosphere this school has, but it’s gotten better at my school recently, mostly thanks to you.” He smiled shyly at Blaine, a blush fighting to color his cheeks. “Having you in my life has made me feel more positive about school.” He licked his lips, choosing his next words carefully; not even his family knew how bad the bullying was and he wasn’t sure it was the right moment to tell Blaine the extent of it, either. “Now that I have someone in my life who really understands me, I don’t feel so weighed down with everything all of the time. It means I’m going to school feeling lighter, better.”

Blaine squeezed Kurt’s hand and smiled at him. “Well, meeting you has given me freedom from all of the treatments I was continuously trialling before. Meeting you changed my attitude towards this condition – it’s really not such a bad thing.” He looked down at their joined hands for a moment, before meeting Kurt’s eyes again. “While it’s difficult at times and it’s not easy going through life tired, without it I would never have met you and that’s more than enough for me to embrace this condition and be grateful for the unique ability we have.”

“Me, too,” Kurt murmured.

They held their gaze for a few seconds longer, before a blush rose on both of their faces and they looked away, flustered. Kurt looked wildly along the hallway leading away from the staircase, his heart racing and what felt like every nerve ending in his body zinging with sensitivity, his tense muscles reacting with a twitch to every tiny impulse they received. He had never felt so on edge with anticipation for something he couldn’t name. 

“I’m glad it was you,” Blaine said softly.

Kurt whipped round to look at him, his heart beat and breathing sounding loud to his ears. Blaine was still facing away from him, his cheeks and ears a deep pink, the blush spreading down his neck. Kurt watched the flutter of his long eyelashes as he blinked and the movement of his throat as he swallowed.

Blaine turned to face him. “I could have ended up being here with someone else; someone not as interesting or understanding as you are. I wouldn’t have this friendship, this-” he gestured between them with his free hand, “-this connection.” Something shifted behind Blaine’s eyes, making them softer and more like melted honey than ever. Kurt’s breath caught somewhere in his chest. “I’m so grateful it’s you.”

Kurt wanted to say something to convey the same message, something more than just a simple agreement, something that would take Blaine’s breath away, too – but with the way Blaine was looking at him, all soft golden eyes and gentle smile, he was too breathless and overwhelmed to find the words. So he found another way to tell him.

Leaning in, he pressed his lips to Blaine’s, his eyes slipping closed at the feeling of Blaine’s smooth, full lips against his own. For a long, suspended second, Kurt kept his mouth there, waiting for Blaine’s reaction or for himself to be able to pull away – and then Blaine’s lips parted beneath his own and Blaine leaned into the kiss.

Inhaling sharply through his nose, Kurt brought up the hand not clasped in Blaine’s to cup Blaine’s jaw, cradling his face as he kissed him with more vigor. Kurt’s heart continued to race, but the tingling electricity in his nerves had vanished and had been replaced with a stomach curling and squeezing pleasure to the point of it almost cramping. It wasn’t what Kurt had expected, but it wasn’t something he questioned or considered off; it just was. 

When they finally parted, Blaine laughed lightly, giddily, and rested his forehead against Kurt’s.

“So glad it’s you,” he breathed. 

 

~ * ~

 

Blaine woke up with a pleasant tingling feeling in his belly, like he’d swallowed fizzing bubbles and they were tickling his insides. He could still see the look on Kurt’s face before they’d kissed, the smile he’d worn afterwards, still feel the phantom ghost of Kurt’s mouth on his own. This both puzzled and saddened him a little as he had both kissed Kurt and hadn’t – because it had been a dream. It had all been just a dream.

Some of the bubbles inside of him burst. Even if they were completely lucid in the dream, it had still only happened in their heads – or whatever space they occupied in dreams. How much more substantial was it than something of his imagination? If it weren’t for all the scientific evidence and accounts from hundreds of other people, he’d be convinced he was going crazy and that he’d slipped too much into his own head, putting too much stake in his imagination. He just had to hold onto what he knew to be true.

Fighting against his deflating mood, he shoved back his blankets and got out of bed. Stretching languidly, he looked towards the window, and froze, his arms still stretched out above his head.

The light filtering through the curtains was far too strong for it to be morning and the angle it hit the carpet at was different to what he usually saw when he woke up. He spun around to look at the clock on his nightstand; he’d slept over half the day away.

He lowered his arms back to his sides.

Having no plans for the day, oversleeping didn’t bother him any, but he knew it would make his parents worry, especially if they knew he’d been dreaming and not just being a teenager with nothing better to do than lounge around in bed all morning. Then something in his peripheral vision caught his attention and a few more of the bubbles sank and popped: his bedroom door was open. Before going to bed each night he always closed his door, which meant someone, probably his mom, had been in his room and knew he’d been in a long lucid dream. This wouldn’t result in anything good.

Deciding to get it over with and ease his parents of their worry, Blaine made a quick bathroom trip and then padded downstairs where he followed the sound of computer keys through to the kitchen.

“We should have just got him on that trial,” his dad said. He was sitting at the kitchen table next to his wife, looking at the screen of the laptop she was typing away on. “He’s still a kid; he doesn’t know what’s best for him. He only sees the here and now, he doesn’t think about the future.”

The horrible sinking feeling returned. Blaine hovered in the hallway just outside the kitchen, listening to what was being said despite not wanting to hear it. Like how it was difficult to drag your eyes away from some terrible sight, Blaine had a strange need to listen to his parents angrily bemoan how he’d refused all therapy, their annoyance and frustration with him palpable. His stomach churned with a sickening mixture of nerves and hurt, but running away from confrontation now wouldn’t do any good.

Stepping into the kitchen, he cleared his throat to announce his presence.

Abruptly breaking off their conversation, his parents whipped round to look at him. Relief broke across his mom’s face, but his dad’s expression remained stern and set in a way that had Blaine knowing it wouldn’t be easy to talk his way out of doing whatever his parents suggested. He swallowed as he approached the kitchen table.

“You had us worried, Blaine,” his mom said, her voice slightly chastising, like it was Blaine’s fault that he’d slept so long. “Did you just wake up?”

Blaine nodded. “Just a couple of minutes ago.” He stood gripping the back of one of the wooden chairs set around the table until his dad shifted his stony gaze from the laptop to him, then he sat down, perching himself on the edge of the seat. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”

His dad dipped his head a little until his eyes were more on level with Blaine’s. “Were you stuck in one of those dreams again? It’s been a while since you last slept as long as that – I wonder if there’s some kind of trigger…”

The way he said this implied that he knew there was a reason behind the dream. Blaine shifted nervously in his seat. Despite knowing there was no reason for the long dream and that, according to scientific data, there were no known triggers for longer than average dreams, he still couldn’t help but think rather guiltily of Kurt. If his parents knew about Kurt they would be blaming him for this, he knew that for certain.

“It can’t be a coincidence that this has happened while you are not on any kind of therapy,” his mom said. “You need to get back on some treatment; surely you can see that now?”

“I had plenty of long dreams while I was on therapy,” Blaine pointed out. “Remember that time I slept for over twenty-four hours? I was on medication then.”

“That was a while ago – the treatments have improved a lot since then.”

Blaine shook his head sagely. “None of them have helped any more than the medication I took back when I was first diagnosed. There is no cure for my condition and nothing that affects any of the dreams I have. Testing all of these therapies is just a waste of time and hope.”

Jaw tightening, his dad clenched and unclenched the fist he had resting on the table top. He looked like he was restraining himself from slamming his hand on the table in frustration. “We’ve pandered to your silly idea long enough, Blaine. It’s time you stopped being so short-sighted and started thinking about your future. You need to go back on therapy.”

“Why can’t you just accept that I don’t want to? Why do you want to force me back into doing something that was having such a negative impact on my life?”

“Why has it taken this long for you to be bothered by this?” his dad asked, spreading his arms wide in question. “Why has it taken almost five years for the treatment to affect you like this? Just a few months ago you were desperate to find a cure and were willing to try almost every therapy out there. Why the sudden change in attitude?”

Lacing his trembling fingers together in his lap, Blaine swallowed again. He never had been good at lying; he didn’t know how much longer he could last without spilling out the whole truth. While the impact on his life of testing treatments was a major reason for his dramatic shift in attitude, Kurt was also a big reason. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep quiet about that. He never had been someone who deliberately kept secrets from his parents; the drive to please them and make them proud of him was too strong.

He looked to his mom, half-hoping she would tell his dad to back off a bit, but knowing it was futile. Her eyes were narrowed in suspicion and when she caught Blaine’s eye, she said, “I find it very hard to believe that your sudden change of heart has come on randomly.”

“Everyone has their limits,” Blaine argued. “I have reached mine.”

“Oh, come on, Blaine,” his dad said in exasperation. “You’d think you had been suffering something onerous for years the way you are acting. You’ve only been taking some pills!”

Blaine gritted his teeth. “You weren’t taking them – you don’t know what it was like! The side effects, the constant doctor’s appointments, the time all these weird therapies took up… And none of them worked in the slightest! I’ve had enough of it!”

“I don’t believe that is the only reason,” his mom said. She shook her head. “No – you’ve never complained before and now all of a sudden you’re at your limit? No.” She scrutinised him for a moment, her expression considering, suspicious. “Did someone say something to you; convince you your condition was okay? Did you read something online?”

“It wasn’t that stupid kid from your school spouting nonsense, was it?” his dad demanded, looking all ready to believe this as being the truth, as though Blaine was constantly being influenced to change his behaviour by his schoolmates.

Heart racing even faster and his tongue thick and clumsy in his dry mouth, Blaine shook his head frantically. “No, no one has said anything to me.” His sweat-dampened palms slipped against each other as an image of Kurt appeared inside his head. His stomach clenched painfully. Nothing good would come of him telling them about Kurt – he knew that – but his protests sounded weak to his own ears and he could feel the resolve he’d managed to build up over the few weeks beginning to crack. He just couldn’t disobey and argue with his parents like this.

“Whoever put this reckless idea into your head isn’t who you should be listening to,” his mom said, her voice firm and tinged with annoyance. “They don’t know what’s best for you; we do.”

A spark of anger flared up inside Blaine at that. It had been his decision to do this, not anyone else’s. Why did his parents always think he was incapable of making his own decisions without the influence of someone else? Even when he’d (mistakenly) expressed his desire to study music in college they’d demanded to know who had put such a stupid idea in his head. They wanted him to follow their ideas and to have their attitudes for things and if he wavered from that then it had to be due to someone else’s influence, because they hadn’t raised him to behave or think in any way but their own. It was infuriating.

His anger dampened down to a simmer, a red glowing ember of a nearly extinguished flame, as his parents continued to rant on about why he was wrong and they were right. He barely heard any of it; his attention focussed on trying to find a route of escape, a way of being able to stay off the treatments and away from anything that may jeopardise what he had with Kurt. He was drawing a blank.

“-can’t ruin your prospect of a bright future because of what some ignorant kid with no common sense and no decent career ahead of them has said. You need to stop listening to what some stupid, loud-mouthed kid is saying and start listening to your parents, those who actually care about you and have your best interests at heart.”

Tuning back in to what his parents were saying, the embers of anger flared back up into roaring flames. He was sick of hearing these arguments; sick of his parents insulting his friends, his classmates – anyone they believed to have influenced his life in a way they didn’t like. They may have been insulting a hypothetical person in this instance, but Blaine couldn’t help but hear it as an insult to Kurt. He hated that his parents were like this and he was so done with having them disagree with everything he did and everyone he had in his life.

Something inside of him snapped.

“I changed my mind because I started travelling and sharing dreams with Kurt,” he burst out, his voice loud enough to make his parents blink at him in surprise. “I changed my own mind; it was my own decision.”

Stunned into silence, his parents only gaped at him, their faces slowly beginning to flush an angry red. Blaine could feel regret and panic settling in along with fear for what could happen next. All he knew what that it wouldn’t be good.

His parents exchanged a loaded look.

“Who’s Kurt?” his dad asked, his voice deceptively calm.

Panic rose inside Blaine, battling with the sinking sense of impending doom. Air stuttered and stumbled its way out of his chest, rushing out in rapid pants in some moments and then getting caught somewhere in his throat the next. The altered oxygen levels made his hands tremble worse than ever and his stomach cramp. He wanted to take his words back; he wanted to rewind the last few seconds and sit in silence instead, refuse to give in to his parents, and wait for them to give up.

He wiped his clammy hands on his pyjama pants.

“Kurt is my dream partner – the guy I’ve been sharing some of my dreams with.” He swallowed, his throat clicking, as a memory of their kiss flashed through him, making a strange hot-cold sensation run through his body. “He’s my friend.”

“I see,” his dad said slowly. “And how long has this been going on?”

Blaine didn’t like the tone of his dad’s voice at all. He could only imagine what he was thinking. In spite of his parents’ assurances that they were accepting of his sexuality, he knew they would be balking at the thought of Blaine sharing dreams with another guy. While he didn’t know for sure, he was pretty certain that his parents could only stomach his sexuality if he wasn’t acting on it. The proof of that was their cold reaction when he told them about his male date to a dance at his previous school. Even his insistence that they were only friends didn’t warm their feeling towards him. To them, Kurt was as unwanted as the dream travelling itself.

“A couple of months,” Blaine replied. “We’ve only shared a few dreams, though.”

He wasn’t going to tell them about communicating outside of dreams; that would only make things go from bad to worse. That would just have to be one secret he kept from them, no matter how hard he found it. 

The snapping sound of the laptop lid being closed brought Blaine’s attention away from his panicky thoughts. He looked across to his mom, who was now resting her forearms on the closed laptop, leaning closer to him over the table.

“You said you are friends with this boy – do you talk to him? Share some of your life with him?” She raised a curious eyebrow, but the stern line of her mouth and coolness of her tone had Blaine choosing his next words carefully.

“Yes, we talk. We tell each other about our days and discuss things we have in common. It’s no different to being with any of my friends from school.”

His parents exchanged another look.

His dad straightened up in his chair, inhaling deeply. “It’s long past time we put our foot down about this.” He levelled his gaze at Blaine, the expression on his face the one he’d referred to as the ‘no nonsense’ gaze when he was younger but which he now knew as the look that screamed, ‘don’t you dare disobey me’.

“You are going to go and see your doctor as soon as you can and you are going to get back on some form of therapy. Your mother is going to sign you up for one of the recruiting clinical trials and you are going to participate in finding a cure again. This has gotten far too out of hand. You’re getting worse – the travelling is proof of that. You can’t let this condition ruin your life.”

His mom frowned at him, realisation dawning in her eyes. “That’s why you slept so long today, isn’t it? You were in a dream with this Kurt.”

Blaine didn’t have to say anything in response to that; his blush said it all.

His dad’s expression darkened. “This is dangerous behavior, Blaine. You will never be able to stop those dreams and control your sleeping pattern if you keep associating with this Kurt. You are to stop doing that – do you understand? It’s for your own good. If you really want a normal, healthy life and that freedom you talked about, then you’ll do this.”

Feeling sick and horribly hollow, Blaine nodded.


	9. Chapter 9

The first thing Kurt wanted to do when he woke up was call Rachel. He’d spent hours over the last year or so listening to her rambling and reminiscing about some boy from her theater group and another from a rival show choir whom she had a disastrous relationship with. It was his turn now. It was his turn to have someone to squeal excitedly with while he described the exact look on Blaine’s face just before they’d kissed and someone to listen while he described the feel of Blaine’s mouth on his own. He wanted to _gush._

Snatching up his phone, he opened up a new message to Rachel and began typing out a request that they meet for coffee in an hour – then he paused.

Rachel had been so cautionary and hesitant about him communicating with Blaine outside of dreams that he doubted she would listen excitedly to him or let him gush for hours. She would question his actions, shake her head in disapproval, and warn him about putting too much stake in dreams and giving his heart away to someone from his dreams. She would then question the authenticity of the kiss and basically burst his bubble. He didn’t want such a hard fall from his high.

He could picture it now: Rachel seated across from him, tea warming her hands, and a deepening frown drawing her brows down as she listened to Kurt’s recount of the kiss. He knew the agitated pitch her voice would rise to when she questioned his feelings; he could almost picture the concern and warning in her gaze as she told him to avoid getting in too deep with Blaine. No, he couldn’t handle that now. The part of him that was slowly waking up pointed out that it would be best to keep his developing relationship with Blaine a secret while it was in such early stages.

Nodding to himself, he deleted the half-written text and set his phone aside. He would just have to keep the elation to himself and be content with re-playing the kiss over and over again inside his head.

With a happy sigh, he leaned back on his hands and stared vacantly across his room, a rather dopey smile on his face. Remembering the look of awe and tenderness in Blaine’s eyes sent a spark of delight through him that sang along his nerves from his head to the tips of his toes, making them curl into the carpet. It was almost hard to believe it wasn’t a daydream.

Then something occurred to him: he had no idea what the kiss even meant. He had woken up almost right after it had happened, giving them no chance to talk. He had no idea what it all meant – how Blaine felt and how (or if) Blaine wanted their relationship to change. The thought made his spirits sink a little.

Abandoning his daydreams, Kurt bit down gently on his bottom lip and looked down at where he’d set his phone. His stomach twisted with a wave of nerves. Slowly, almost robotically, he reached out and picked the phone up. He stared down at the blank screen, thinking.

From what Blaine had said before they’d kissed to the way he had looked at him… it had to be okay; Blaine had to feel the same. Rubbing his thumb over the screen, he debated with himself for a moment, and then unlocked his phone. He had to put his mind to rest now; he had to know for sure.

Heart rate steadily picking up speed, he opened up a new text message to Blaine.

_‘Good morning (afternoon)! I know we just saw each other, but could we do our phone call a little earlier today? Our meeting was cut short rather abruptly and I think we should talk.’_

Stomach squirming, he hit send and waited for the confirmation that it had gone to appear on the screen. Maybe it was a bit reckless to have romantic ties with a dream partner, but their attraction and connection were something he couldn’t fight. Besides, they couldn’t be the first ones to do this. There had to be other cases of this occurring. 

Too antsy to sit and wait for a reply, Kurt started to get dressed, but it didn’t take long for his anxious energy to bring back a strong need to check his phone. Giving in, he quickly buttoned up his jeans before scooping up his phone to check for any replies despite knowing there wasn’t any. The nerves were getting worse the longer he waited and paranoia was starting to settle in. The memory of the kiss replayed in his mind’s eye from a different perspective – had he forced himself on a purely friendly Blaine? His pulse and breathing turned erratic at the thought. If Blaine had been unwilling then he’d ruined their friendship and they’d be stuck sharing painfully awkward dreams for the rest of their lives.

In an attempt to distract himself, he went into the bathroom to style his hair, taking his time meticulously combing it up into a swooping coif. His trembling hands made holding the comb harder and he was still distracted, so much so that he almost sprayed deodorant onto his hair instead of hairspray. He understood now why Rachel had been so scatter-brained while dating Jessie.

His dad looked in on him while he was making his bed.

“You’re awake,” he noted with a small smile. His gaze flickered to the bed. “Good dream or bad dream?”

Kurt plumped up one of the pillows and smoothed out the creases in the pillowcase. He turned his back on his dad to hide his involuntary smile, setting the pillow back in its spot on the bed. “It was a good dream.” He pretended to adjust the pillows until he had gotten his expression under control, and then he turned to face his dad again.

His dad was still smiling. “Carole and I are going to the mall to get a few things – do you want to come?”

Kurt shook his head. “I really need to go through my closet and re-organize it for summer. I haven’t had the time until today and it’s getting annoying having to push aside all of my light sweaters to get to my short-sleeved shirts.”

Ordinarily, he would have jumped at the opportunity to go shopping, but he just couldn’t enjoy himself while he was so anxiously awaiting Blaine’s reply.

Just as he finished speaking, he heard his phone chime softly behind him. He itched to spin around and grab it 

His dad clapped a hand against the doorframe he was leaning against and straightened up. “Alright, we’ll be back in a few hours.”

Trying not to look impatient, Kurt nodded and waited with tensed muscles until his dad left his room. When he heard him starting to descend the stairs, he snatched his phone up, his stomach spasming sickeningly when he saw Blaine’s name on the screen. 

_‘If you’ve just woken up, it’s morning, irrespective of what time it says on the clock. Your body thinks it’s morning, therefore it is. I can call you now if you’re free?’_

Kurt exhaled shakily through his mouth and sank down onto his bed. The tone of Blaine’s reply was encouraging, so he couldn’t have decided to completely abandon their friendship. The churning nerves in Kurt’s belly settled down to an uncomfortable flutter. He sent Blaine an affirmation and then balanced his phone on his thigh to wait for his call.

It wasn’t even a minute later when his phone rang, buzzing against his leg. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the button to answer.

“Hi,” he said uncertainly, the small boost in confidence he’d gained from reading Blaine’s text beginning to waiver. 

“Hey.” Blaine’s reply was quiet and he sounded just as hesitant as Kurt. He cleared his throat softly. “I’m glad you suggested we talk now; I didn’t particularly want to wait until tonight.”

He sounded as nervous as Kurt felt, which helped Kurt regain some of his lost confidence. His nerves surely meant they felt the same way about each other.

Kurt tightened his grip on his phone. “I think we should talk about where things are going with us.”

A shaky sounding exhale came through the phone. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Kurt repeated. He fell silent, not having a clue what to say next. He had no experience with this sort of thing and he was worried about saying something wrong or coming on too strongly and scaring Blaine off. Having this conversation over the phone didn’t help, but what choice did they have? 

After almost a minute of silence, Blaine took the leap into uncertain territory and spoke.

“Kurt, I really care about you and I don’t know how you feel about it, but that kiss meant a lot to me. It wasn’t just something that happened that I want to forget about.”

Hands shaking more than ever, Kurt let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. Relief left him feeling loose and limp, like his muscles had loosened their death grip on his bones. He was so relieved that his feelings were reciprocated that he couldn’t even get excited over Blaine liking him.

“I feel the same way,” he breathed. He hesitated over adding more and decided to take the plunge. Holding back now would only be a detriment. “I’ve had a bit of a crush on you for a while now,” he confessed shyly, his cheeks warming. 

An odd sound came down the line then that was either Blaine shuffling around with his phone or just something going weird with the connection. Kurt listened to the sound of his racing pulse as the noise stopped.

“Me, too,” Blaine confessed. “I felt a connection the first time we saw each other and since then it has just developed.” His voice softened. “I’ve never felt this way before.”

Kurt’s stomach squeezed in pure delight, his body flooded with the same thrilling elation. He felt the return of the bubbles in his stomach and the sensation of being able to do anything he wanted, of being invincible. He had to bite his lip to control his smile and prevent a burst of laughter from escaping. Hearing Blaine say that like he was sharing a deeply personal secret with him, like he was baring his soul, felt just as good as their kiss had, perhaps better. Nobody had ever said something like that to him before. He almost didn’t know what to do with Blaine’s words – shout them from the rooftops? Lock them away deep inside of him? His blush darkened as he became flustered.

He swallowed down the delighted little squeals of sound fighting to burst out of his throat. “I wish it weren’t so complicated. I love sharing dreams with you, but I wish this was simpler, like we’d met at school or something.”

“Then we’d be able to see each other more,” Blaine agreed, his voice turning gloomy.

Kurt perked up a little bit. “At least we get to see each other soon. It’ll be hard while we don’t have much opportunity to visit each other, but we’ll be in college soon and you never know, we might both end up in New York!” He felt considerably happier about it now; a year wasn’t that long and they still had their phone calls and their dreams until then.

Blaine didn’t seem to share his optimism. “Yeah…” he said, still sounding unhappy. Kurt heard him shifting around. “I’m a bit worried about what impact the dreams will have on us if- if we started a relationship – if that was something you wanted?”

“I do.” Kurt swallowed dryly. “It is something I want.” He thought about it for a moment, trying not to let himself get carried away with his feelings and not considering it properly. 

“It will probably be hard at times, but so is every relationship. We’ll just have to be mindful of when the other needs space or time to be alone in any shared dream. And we’ll take things slowly.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” Blaine said. “Especially seeing as we’ve got distance against us, as well.”

The reminder made Kurt’s heart sink and, for a moment, he felt their situation was a bit hopeless. He scrambled to point out the silver lining to the dull grey cloud hanging overhead.

“We can still make it work – phone calls, Skype, visits during vacation – and it should be easier once we finish high school.”

Blaine let out a small sigh. “I know. I just worry that the dreams and distance complicate things and if it all crashes and burns, how do we manage sharing dreams? I don’t like thinking about it ending badly between us, but I can’t help but worry.”

Kurt swallowed again, his stomach tightening with concern. A potential breakdown of their relationship wasn’t something he liked to dwell on either, but like it or not it was something they had to think about. They weren’t entering into a typical relationship they could walk away from if things went south; they were bound together in another relationship, possibly for life. Kurt didn’t want the safe haven of his dreams to turn sour.

“It worries me, too,” he said. “That’s why I think we should take it slow until we’ve finished school and know what we’re doing for college, then we can re-evaluate. If we both end up in New York, that’s all the better.”

He waited for Blaine to respond and frowned when the silence continued. He removed the phone from his ear to check the connection.

“Blaine? Is that- Are you okay with that?”

“Oh – yes; yes, I am. Going slow sounds good.”

Kurt’s frown deepened. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is!” Blaine assured him immediately, his voice so sincere, the tightening of Kurt’s muscles relaxed. “I’m sorry, I’m just- I just wish there was a way to make it easier.”

“Me, too,” Kurt sighed. “But we’ll make it work,” he added confidently.

He felt better having some form of plan in place. They were maybe still feeling their way through the dark, but he felt confident they could handle it. It wouldn’t be the easiest of relationships, but with effective communication and the use of modern technology, they had a good shot at making it work.

“I’ll do my best to make sure we do,” Blaine said. Kurt could hear the smile in his voice, though he still sounded a little off. He put it down to nerves over their new, somewhat complicated relationship.

Kurt glanced at his open closet. “I’d better go; I’ve got a closet full of clothes I need to re-organise.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow – if I don’t see you tonight.”

Kurt smiled fondly. “I guess you will.”

“Bye,” Blaine said softly.

“Bye.”

Still smiling, Kurt ended the call and set his phone aside on his bed. He felt like a weight had been taken off him, like his stomach had been full of lead and now it was empty of it once more. It was such a relief to know he and Blaine were on the same page. 

Stretching, he stood up and headed over to his closet. It really did need organising, but it was not a job he was really in the mood to start now. With a small sigh, he reached for one of his sweaters. He should have thought of a better excuse for not going to the mall.

The next day Kurt invited Sam and Rachel out for ice cream to celebrate his new relationship with Blaine. Sticking to his decision to keep it a secret, his friends didn’t know they were celebrating, but Kurt treated himself to an extra scoop and more toppings to mark the occasion.

Since it was a beautiful summer’s day with the kind of weather that had Kurt fervently hoping the SPF in his moisturiser wasn’t just a gimmick to charge more, Sam suggested they walk around the streets surrounding the ice cream parlour instead of sitting indoors. It was the most carefree Kurt had felt all summer – talking anything and everything with his friends and with the knowledge of Blaine’s feelings for him tucked in close to his heart, filling him with a pleasant glow. He could feel the hard crust of hatred and resistance formed over the school year beginning to shed, the weariness and sense of entrapment lifting. Maybe surviving his senior year wouldn’t be so bad. It was one year and then it didn’t matter anymore; it seemed silly to get so worked up about it.

They rounded a corner onto one of the busier streets. It was lined with shops and cafés and the street was thick with people out enjoying the sunshine. Still eating their ice cream, Kurt, Sam, and Rachel weaved their way through the crowds, their conversation stopped for the moment as they split from walking in a group to navigate the packed sidewalk.

Frustrated at trying to make his way around so many slow walkers, Kurt ducked off the street onto a much quieter side road that joined with the main street further up. After the crowds he’d just left it felt good to lengthen his stride and walk briskly towards the end of the road where he could catch up with Sam and Rachel.

Focusing on eating another bite of his ice cream, he didn’t notice the group of McKinley students seated outside one of the cafes until he was already alongside them.

“Hummel!”

Frowning, Kurt turned to look at whoever had shouted his name – and almost fell flat on his face when something tripped him up. Staggering, Kurt struggled to stay upright while loud, raucous laughter rang out from the café tables he was passing.

Heart racing and stomach sinking with dread, Kurt turned slowly to see what had tripped him and saw a blond guy sitting in the chair closest to the sidewalk slowly withdrawing his leg back under the table.

“You still need to learn to watch where you’re going, Hummel,” the blond guy, who Kurt recognised from his math class, sneered. “That’s how you end up flying into lockers and dumpsters.”

The girls sitting beside him sniggered. A guy from Kurt’s English class called Mark stood up from where he had been sitting at the far end of the table. He glowered at Kurt, his expression twisted into a disgusted grimace.

“His kind never learn, otherwise they’d stop rubbing their sick, perverted fantasies in our faces all the time.”

Kurt wanted to say something witty in his defence, to snap a retort that would leave the whole lot of them reeling and then march away with his head in the air, but his throat had locked up and his breath had seized in his lungs. Blood rushed behind his ears and his vision sharpened, focusing in on Mark moving out from behind the table. The big muscles in his thighs trembled as his body itched to run away, but another, stronger instinct kept him routed to the spot. Air whistled out of his lungs as Mark stopped a few feet in front of him, a twisted grin on his face.

“We don’t have a choice about seeing your face around school, but we do have a choice here.” He took a step closer to Kurt, and Kurt’s muscles tensed for flight.

“Let’s see…” Mark looked around them briefly, still keeping a close eye on Kurt. “There are no dumpsters around here, no lockers, no stairwells, and no slushies. I could shove you into a brick wall, I suppose, or hit you with my bare hands and try and knock some sense – some normalcy – into you.”

Swallowing roughly, Kurt watched Mark take another step closer to him while his friends eyed them hungrily, waiting eagerly for the action to begin.  
Kurt regained his voice when Mark was right in front of him, barely inches away.

“Or you could be a decent human being for a change and leave me alone.” His voice was higher and squeakier than he would have liked, but it was better than mutely taking Mark’s threats.

Mark scowled. “Don’t talk to me about being a decent human being. You have no right to say that to me, you sick fag.”

One or two people passing by looked around at Mark’s raised voice, but after sweeping their eyes over the scene, they turned away again. Not one of them looked concerned or appeared to consider intervening. Kurt swallowed again, fighting the urge to step backwards.

“You’re disgusting, Hummel; you’re an abomination. You’d better watch your step around here, because I’m not sure how much more of you I can take – and I’m not the only one who feels this way. You shouldn’t be allowed to walk our streets and come to our schools – it’s wrong! You should be locked away in some kind of hospital.” Nostrils flaring, Mark lowered his voice to a dangerous, threatening growl. “Watch your back, Hummel, because one of these days someone’s going to snap and see that you get what you deserve.”

With a final glare at Kurt, Mark turned away and moved back to the table his friends were sitting at. 

Exhaling shakily and with his muscles quivering, Kurt made to hurry away. Quick as a flash, Mark snatched up one of the half-drunk drinks off their table and threw it over Kurt, splashing him with the hot liquid. Roaring laughter followed Kurt as he spun around and marched away, tears stinging in his eyes as the front of his t-shirt soaked up the coffee splattered all down his front.

It wasn’t until he had stepped back into the crowds on the main street that he remembered the half-eaten ice cream still clutched in his hand. His fingers were clamped so tightly around the little cardboard bowl that he’d crushed it slightly. He tossed it in a nearby trashcan; he’d lost his appetite.

“Kurt!”

Kurt tensed, his shoulders instinctively hunching in a protective gesture, until he recognised the voice. He looked over the heads of a family walking around him and spotted Sam coming towards him with Rachel in tow.

“There you are,” Rachel said when she’d reached Kurt’s side. “You should wait for us before you decide to go into one of the shops.”

“I didn’t go in any of the shops, Rachel,” Kurt told her wearily. He wasn’t in the mood to pretend everything was okay and pass the coffee stain off as an accident. His enjoyable day had been ruined and he wanted nothing more than to go home and be alone. 

Rachel’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Then what-?”

“What happened to your shirt?” Sam interrupted, his eyes on the large stain that was causing Kurt’s shirt to cling uncomfortably to his torso.

Kurt avoided their eyes. “I had a run-in with some idiots from school.”

He heard Rachel make a noise of exclamation and start to curse the bullies, but he took a moment to gather himself and get his emotions in check before he looked back to his friends.

Rachel looked angry and was complaining about the safety of the streets, while Sam looked concerned.

“Are you okay?” he asked over Rachel’s continued ranting. “Did they hit you?”

Kurt shook his head. “Just the same old slurs and a coffee thrown over me,” he sighed.

Sam nodded slowly, his eyes searching Kurt’s face. “Did you want to go somewhere else or go home?”

“I- Do you mind if I go home? I want to be alone.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay? I don’t mind staying with you if you want company,” Sam offered.

Kurt shook his head again. “Thanks, but I just want to be alone for a while.”

Rachel had stopped ranting and had been listening to their exchange. Her forehead was still creased with worry, but she stepped forward and hooked her arm through Kurt’s. 

“We’ll take you home,” she said quietly.

On the journey back to his house, Kurt plucked at his ruined shirt and wished there was a way to guarantee he would share a dream with Blaine that night. If there was anything that would lift his mood it would be seeing Blaine’s smile. Blaine’s smile that was like sunshine: bright, beautiful, and warming. He had thought he was free from the bullies and the torment while he wasn’t at school, but he couldn’t get a break from it. He couldn’t even walk down the street in town without being harassed. His dreams were the only place he was free from prejudice and hate. If he could, he would gladly sleep for days; anything to get away from what he faced in reality.

 

~ * ~

 

After learning about Kurt, Blaine’s parents had pushed to know more about him and the dreams they shared. It had quickly become apparent to Blaine that while they were concerned about the change in his condition, they were not pleased with Blaine sharing dreams with another guy. He tried to tell himself that they were just afraid and uneducated about homosexuality, but he couldn’t help but sense an undercurrent of prejudice homophobia.

Pausing in his pacing of his room, Blaine rubbed at his eye and let out a sigh of frustration. He had been so weak letting his parents get to him and telling them about Kurt. If he’d just held his tongue and ignored their insistence that he go back on treatment he wouldn’t be in the mess he was in now. Why did he always have to be such a people pleaser? So determined to appease his parents and follow their ideas and plans that he muted the calling of his own head and heart? How much longer would he keep doing this? Would he find himself in a college he didn’t want to attend a few years from now studying a degree he didn’t enjoy on the path for a career he’d never had any interest in? He couldn’t go on like this. He couldn’t keep making himself miserable just to make his parents happy. He needed to get a grip and stand up for himself.

Unfortunately, it was easier said than done. His biggest problem now wasn’t going back on the cycle of testing treatments, but the plan for Kurt to visit him in Massachusetts. They’d been planning it for weeks now, but there was no way it could happen. He couldn’t ask his parents for permission for Kurt to visit, not now. They would refuse on the spot and he hated to think of what the resulting angry, panicked outburst would be like. His parents would be horrified that he and Kurt were communicating outside of dreams, so much so, that he wouldn’t put it past them to take his phone away, cutting off his ability to talk to Kurt outside of dreams. He knew Kurt could always stay somewhere else for his visit, but he knew his parents would still find out, either by Blaine’s stupid, guilty mouth blabbing it to them or one of their many friends seeing him and Kurt out together. It just wouldn’t be possible. He was too cowardly to take a risk and either ask his parents if Kurt could come and stay or to keep Kurt’s visit a secret, and he was too weak to take a stand and do something he wanted for a change.

Since talking to Kurt on the phone about their relationship, guilt had been constantly gnawing at Blaine. He carried it around with him all day every day, an ache in his stomach that just would not go away. His reasons for keeping his parents’ reaction to Kurt a secret sounded feebler every day and it became increasingly harder to convince himself that he was doing the right thing. However, with his parents becoming more concerned about his condition and his relationship with Kurt, and his nightly phone calls with Kurt becoming more difficult to hide, he knew it was only a matter of time before he would have to tell Kurt.

Sitting on his bed one afternoon after returning from a doctor’s visit where his enrolment in a clinical trial was discussed, Blaine glanced anxiously at his phone, biting on the inside of his cheek as he turned the whole situation over in his head once again.

He knew he should tell Kurt everything that had happened and that the meeting was off, but- The flesh of his cheek split, sending a trickle of warm, coppery blood onto his tongue. He was afraid to tell him when what they had was so new and fresh. Kurt would think he was being rejected and that it was all a mistake – Blaine couldn’t let that happen.

Blaine probed at the ragged, raw cut in his cheek with his tongue, the dull pain a welcome punishment for his stupidity at getting into this mess. As he stared down at his phone, conflicted, the screen lit up with a new text from Kurt. His stomach lurched sickeningly; he wasn’t ready for this.

He watched his phone until the screen dimmed to black again, and then he reached over and picked it up. With his heart thumping, he pressed the button to light the screen up again and opened Kurt’s text.

_‘I’ve been looking at flights and my plans and I think I could manage to visit for four days. How does that sound? I wish I could stay for longer, but I really don’t want to leave my dad for too long.’_

Blaine’s heart sank. He should have known Kurt would be texting him about his visit; it was pretty much all he talked about these days. Kurt was so excited about it. Knowing he would have to crush this excitement shattered Blaine’s heart.

Pressing a button to light the dimmed screen up again so he could re-read Kurt’s text, Blaine worried at the inside of his cheek with his teeth, destroying the blood clot that had formed there. 

Reluctantly, he rationed that telling Kurt via text message wouldn’t be the best idea, so with his stomach churning worse than ever, he replied to the text as if all were fine.

_‘Sounds great! I’d be happily take any time with you, no matter how long or short a period. We’ll have to start thinking about dates now!’_

He pressed send and swallowed thickly around the guilt coating his throat and the rest of his insides. He couldn’t go on like this; he had to tell him. 

Tossing his phone aside, he dropped his head into his hands, pressing the heel of his palms against his eyes. There was a horrible argument raging inside of him, one that shouldn’t even be taking place. A part of him was determined to keep the truth from Kurt, to keep the peace and to keep the relationship he had yearned for. The rest of him wanted to tell Kurt, to stop lying to him and to let him know the real Blaine, the one who couldn’t bear to disappoint his parents, no matter how irrational they were being. He was caught between being selfish and possibly destroying what he and Kurt had, and being brave and also possibly destroying what they had. He couldn’t believe it was such a difficult choice to make or that he was currently sticking with the selfish option. He never had been able to take a risk; the one time he had he’d ended up in hospital, and now he couldn’t even do it to be true to Kurt.

It was times like these that Blaine truly hated who he was.


	10. Chapter 10

The skin of his hands turned steadily pinker, becoming raw and even breaking in places, but still Kurt continued to scrub at the coffee stain on his shirt. He scrubbed at the shirt until his fingertips stung and his arms began to ache with the effort, and then he rinsed it off and flung it onto the counter beside the sink.

As soon as Rachel and Sam had dropped him off home, he’d filled the laundry sink with warm, soapy water, hunted down a clothes brush, and had started frantically scrubbing at the stain. He’d put every ounce of his anger, frustration, and hurt into his effort to get that stain out of his shirt. If the coffee hadn’t ruined it then the forceful scrubbing probably had.

Blinking back tears, Kurt glared at the damp shirt. The stain could still be faintly seen, a light brown colour forming an irregular splatter shape across the pale blue material; he would need to get the shirt dry-cleaned. Whether it was worth paying someone to remove a stain caused by bullies was another matter entirely. Maybe he should just throw it out and try and forget about it.

Arms crossed over his bare chest to ward off the chill, Kurt glared at the shirt dripping water on the floor, as though it were the cause of his problem instead of them. With a heavy sigh, he snatched the shirt up and held it over the sink to squeeze the worst of the water out of it. He’d take the shirt to the drycleaners tomorrow. He’d worked hard to save up the money to buy it, he wasn’t going to throw away all of that effort now.

By the time his dad and Carole arrived home, he had changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt and his stained shirt was drying in his bathroom where nobody would see it. When he was asked about his afternoon with Rachel and Sam, he lied and said it was great and that they’d planned to return and get ice cream again before the end of summer. Neither of them suspected a thing.

He felt a pang of guilt when the conversation shifted onto something else. He didn’t like lying to his family, especially his dad. They’d been extremely close since his mom had died, and until the bullying had escalated he’d never purposefully kept anything from him.

He’d been keeping the extent of his bullying a secret since the start of junior year when it had abruptly escalated from mildly upsetting to sometimes terrifying. Back then he had simply just wanted to avoid making people worry about him. Now didn’t seem like the best time to reveal how bad things were; not with his dad still recovering from a heart attack.

He did his best to act as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened and managed to pretend all was well right the way through dinner and watching some TV afterwards. He’d become so used to pretending insults weren’t echoing in his head and bruises weren’t making his body ache that it was easy to keep his secret behind locked doors. He was an expert at this.

He didn’t allow his game face to slip until he was alone in his room later that evening. The moment he let his guard down the insults rang in his ears, the cruel laughter bounced around inside his skull, and his skin stung where the coffee had splashed against it. It hurt almost as much second time around with only the memories attacking him.

With his chest tightening, Kurt ambled across the room and slumped down on the edge of his bed, hunching over himself with his elbows resting on his thighs.

He’d never been the target for homophobic bullying outside of school before. Somehow it seemed more scary and real when it was happening on the street instead of the school halls, even if it was someone from school harassing him. At school there was some restriction on what bullies could do because of the number of people confined in one building who could witness it, and there was that hopeful ray of light at the end of the tunnel that was graduation. Knowing that he would soon be leaving school and the bullying behind was what got Kurt through the school day, what got him to dust himself off and march away with his head held high after a jeer or a locker shove. There was a use-by date on high school bullying; no such thing existed outside of the sheltered environment of school. Kurt’s eyes had been suddenly, horribly opened to the realization that he could potentially be a target for harassment anytime, anywhere. The pain and humiliation of bullying didn’t end with the school day or become a distant memory after graduation. The risk of some ignorant, homophobic bully picking on him because they didn’t like who he was would always be there. He’d never really appreciated that until now.

Feeling achingly helpless, Kurt flopped back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. The prospect of harassment following him out of school was bleak, but at least he had an escape from it all, a way of sort of living in the different world of his dreams. While most aspects of this world were warped and time was unpredictable and fluid, he was still conscious and still receiving a break from cold, harsh reality. The dreams he shared with Blaine were even better. In these he also had someone who cared about him; it was enough to make dreamworld even more tempting. It was a much better deal than most victims of harassment got, and for that he was grateful.

Feeling a little better about it all, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Blaine. As the phone rang, he got up and began getting ready for bed, grabbing his pyjamas and unlacing his boots.

“Hey,” Blaine answered.

A smile spread across Kurt’s face upon hearing Blaine’s voice. “Hi.” He wiggled his left foot and kicked his boot off. “How was the rehearsal?”

“About how you would expect the first rehearsal to be: mayhem. Lots of arguing and complaining and not much actual rehearsing.”

Blaine was the pianist and music coordinator for a local children’s theater group’s summer musical production. It was a voluntary job that he did throughout the year on a once weekly basis, but during summer vacation the group did a big musical production, meaning Blaine put in a lot of hours teaching the kids to sing the songs and then playing the piano for the rehearsals and performances. Though Blaine sometimes complained about the kids being bratty or having to play the same song over and over again, Kurt knew it was something he loved doing.

Kurt kicked his other boot off and scooped them up to put away in his closet. “Has that Rachel girl finally accepted that she can’t be the lead in every play?” he asked as he put his boots away. Tilting his head to one side, he tucked his phone between his ear and his shoulder, shimmied out of his sweatpants, and then pulled on his pyjama pants.

Blaine laughed. “No, she hasn’t accepted it. She was the one doing most of the complaining.”

Kurt smiled. Blaine had told him about this one girl in the theater group who was determined to be a star. She sounded so much like Rachel Berry that Kurt had nicknamed her ‘Rachel.’ During their phone call a few days before, Blaine had told him all about casting for the play and how Rachel’s young doppelganger had thrown a fit at not getting the leading role but the part of one of the other main characters instead. Having known Rachel for so long, Kurt pitied Blaine having to deal with this little girl during the production of the play for the rest of the summer vacation.

Putting his phone on speaker, Kurt finished getting changed and then sat down at his vanity to put some moisturiser on. He listened to Blaine tell him in detail about how the rehearsal had gone as he rubbed splotches of cream into his cheeks. He found listening to Blaine’s voice while he went through his evening routine soothing; he could no longer imagine getting ready for bed without the soundtrack of his voice in the background.

“So how was your day?” Blaine asked. “Did you end up going out with your friends?”

Kurt capped his jar of moisturiser and scooped up his phone again, turning it off speaker. “I got ice cream with Sam and Rachel. It was nice.” He hesitated, wondering how much to say. “That was, until I ran into one of the homophobic morons from my school and some of his idiot friends.”

“What happened?” Blaine asked, his voice frantic and full of concern. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

Kurt forced a light laugh that ended up coming out stiff and wrong. “I’m fine,” he assured him. “They just sneered a bit and threw a drink at me; nothing that I’m not used to.”

He could almost hear Blaine’s uncertainty and reluctance to brush the issue off. “Were Rachel and Sam with you when it happened?”

“No, we’d gotten separated on a busy street and I took a side street to catch up to them and avoid the crowds.”

Blaine was silent for a moment and Kurt knew he wasn’t happy. He could picture what Blaine’s expression would be like: mouth downturned, brow furrowed, eyes more brown than gold. He had been right to withhold the full details of what had happened; Blaine was probably going to worry about him as it was.

Blaine let out a deep sigh. “They didn’t hurt you?” he said questioningly.

Even though he knew Blaine couldn’t see him, he shook his head. “They didn’t. I’m fine, Blaine, really. The worst damage was to my shirt; I’m going to have to get it dry-cleaned tomorrow.”

“What did they throw at you?”

“Coffee,” Kurt sighed glumly. He looked through the open bathroom door at his damp shirt draped over the towel rail. “I’ve tried everything I know of to get the stain out, but you can still see it.”

Blaine hummed in response, and then asked, “Do your parents know what happened?”

Turning his back on his stained shirt, Kurt readjusted his grip on his phone. “No, I didn’t want my dad to worry, especially so soon after a heart attack.” He shifted his position on the vanity’s stool. This was coming uncomfortably close to the worry he’d had earlier about how much his dad and Carole knew about the bullying.

“Just promise me you’ll tell them if the bullying gets worse – that you’ll get help,” Blaine said firmly, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Kurt swallowed. “I will; I promise.”

By the time he and Blaine said goodnight, he was sure he had him convinced that he hadn’t been affected by the coffee-throwing bullies all that much. He didn’t feel too relieved about this; he doubted Blaine would have believed him so easily if they’d been speaking face-to-face.

He worked in the garage the next day, wearing oil-stained overalls and spending hours bent over engines or staring up at the undersides of cars. He revelled in getting his hands dirty and fiddling with the intricate workings of cars until he got them running smoothly again, a fact that had shocked Rachel when he’d told her he enjoyed being at the garage. Apparently it was something that didn’t go hand-in-hand with his fashionista, musical-loving self. 

As he waited for a car to be raised up on a jack, absently watching his dad finishing up with a customer, he decided he would tell his dad and Carole about visiting Blaine that night at dinner. He didn’t spend hours mulling over when or how to tell them, it just suddenly became set in his mind that he should tell them that evening and he would tell them straight. They needed to know he was sharing his dreams with someone amazing and why he so desperately wanted to go to Massachusetts to visit him. Before today he’d been worried about how they would take the news and not being given permission to go and visit Blaine, but yesterday’s events had put things into perspective. He couldn’t be so hesitant in a world that didn’t tiptoe around him.

He waited until dinner was served and they were all seated at the table, tucking into their food. 

“You remember the guy I have shared some of my dreams with – Blaine?” Kurt asked, his casual tone only wavering slightly.

Carole looked up from her plate to peer curiously at him, while his dad chewed his mouthful of food slowly, his eyes never straying from Kurt’s face, before swallowing and saying an affirmation.

“Yeah, you’ve mentioned him a few times.”

“Well, we’ve become… closer these last few weeks – we’re friends now.” Kurt prodded a slice of tomato with his fork, not feeling up to eating until this conversation was over. In spite of all of his determination to do this, his confidence had wavered slightly now that he was actually telling them.

“Just through your dreams?” Carole wondered.

Kurt shoved the tomato aside. Of course Carole would pick up on that right away. “We’ve been talking on the phone as well.”

His dad scooped up another forkful of salad. “I didn’t know you could exchange phone numbers through dreams.”

“We just recited our numbers and I woke up with Blaine’s number in my head.” Kurt shrugged. “Like how you remember any dream, I guess.”

Carole smiled at him. “Well, I think it’s nice you two are getting along so well; you may end up sharing dreams for the rest of your lives.”

Kurt smiled blandly. “Yes, and it’s because we are getting along so well that we decided we want to meet each other in person.”

The clattering of cutlery against china and the sound of chewing abruptly ceased as his dad and Carole froze to stare at Kurt. Kurt fidgeted under their collective gaze, running a finger repeatedly down over the edge of the table.

“You want to meet each other,” his dad repeated, and though he wasn’t exactly asking a question, Kurt nodded in response. “Where would you be meeting? Do you even know where Blaine lives?”

Kurt’s finger froze against the table rim and he inhaled deeply, his eyes flicking between his dad and Carole. “That’s the thing: Blaine lives in Massachusetts. I’d have to travel out there to visit him.”

His dad exhaled slowly and exchanged a look with Carole. “Kurt, I know you share dreams with this guy and have been texting him and stuff, but how well do you really know him?” 

Kurt opened his mouth to respond, but his dad cut him off before he could say anything. “And we don’t really know him at all! You can’t expect us to happily let you go to another state to meet him.”

Forcibly pushing down the anger determined to bubble up and spill out of his mouth, Kurt tried to think of a way to convince them that meeting Blaine was a good idea.

“Blaine is a good guy, he’s not some mass murderer,” Kurt stammered out. He floundered for a moment, trying to articulate why meeting Blaine was so important to him without revealing the recent change in their relationship. “I don’t think you fully understand these dreams I have with him, but we can’t manipulate who we are or deceive each other like you can outside of a dream.” Kurt let his hand slide off of the table onto his lap as he slumped back in his chair. “It’s not like that. I just want to meet my friend – and he feels the same way.”

His dad considered him silently for a moment and then Carole spoke up.

“We’re still a bit concerned with you going so far away to visit someone we barely know,” she said gently. “I’m sure you can understand why that’s difficult for us.”

Biting his lower lip, Kurt nodded. He could feel himself deflating as the hope and excitement of getting to meet Blaine in person slowly began to leach out of him. He wouldn’t back down on this without a fight, but he knew from experience that his dad refusing firmly without a hint of wavering from the offset didn’t bode well. He hadn’t been given a firm no yet, but he could sense it coming.

“Would it help if you talked to Blaine on the phone?” Kurt offered. “Maybe his parents, as well?”

His dad cocked an eyebrow at him. “So you’ll be staying with Blaine’s family?”

“I- I think so. Nothing’s been confirmed yet, but I think that’s what Blaine’s been saying.”

Gazing at Kurt contemplatively, his dad scratched his chin, before turning to exchange another long look with Carole. 

Kurt waited for what he knew would be the determining answer with bated breath. Finally they looked back to Kurt, their expressions impossible to decipher.

“I want to speak with Blaine and his parents on the phone first,” his dad said.

A spark of hope, excitement, and delight bloomed inside of Kurt’s chest. He jerked upright, knocking his fork so it scraped noisily against the edge of his plate. “So I can go? I can visit Blaine?”

Smiling, his dad nodded. “If it all checks out with his parents, yes, you can go.”

Beaming, Kurt picked up his fork again and returned to his cooling dinner. He couldn’t wait to tell Blaine the good news. 

 

~ * ~

 

With the situation with Kurt rapidly spinning out of control, Blaine scrambled to find a way to sort it all out. He spent many an hour trying to think of a way for Kurt to visit under his parent’s noses and he approached his parents multiple times with the intention of telling them that Kurt would be visiting, only for his throat to close up every time he tried. His sense of panic increased each day he went along with Kurt’s planning for the visit until he found himself no longer looking forward to their phone calls.

It wasn’t until Wes invited him over to one of his regular gaming nights that Blaine realized he’d missed a potential source of a solution to his problems. Even if Wes himself couldn’t find a way to have Kurt over to visit without angering his parents, talking the issue over with his friend may help clear the whole thing up in his head and allow him to resolve it himself. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of talking to Wes before.

He arrived at Wes’ house with the intention of sitting down somewhere quiet with him and discussing the issue. However, when he entered the basement and found it full of their friends, laughing and shouting at the video game being played, Blaine’s resolution to draw Wes aside died; there were too many people there, it would be too conspicuous. Instead, he threw himself into having fun with his friends: joining in on playing the video games, shouting advice and comments to others playing, and laughing at jokes. He had to make more of an effort to enjoy himself and he kept having to forcibly beat down thoughts of Kurt, but he managed.

A few hours later he found himself alone in the kitchen with Wes, fetching more snacks and drinks for everyone. As he grabbed bags of chips from the cupboard, he realised he had no excuse for not talking to Wes now.

With inexplicable nerves fluttering in his stomach, he opened his mouth to try and talk to Wes, but balked at the last second, closing his mouth and busying himself fetching more snacks. He tried again. And again. And another time…

Wes slammed the bottle of soda he was holding down on the benchtop and spun to look at him, making Blaine jump.

“What’s up?” Wes asked, fixing Blaine with a fierce eye. “I know something’s bothering you; you’ve got that weird look on your face, like you’ve got painful indigestion or something.”

For a split second, Blaine set his jaw and went to shake his head in protest, but Wes narrowed his eyes at him and he dropped his defensive stance, allowing his shoulders to slump in defeat. There was no escape now. He went to try and explain everything, but found himself unable to do anything but shuffle his feet under Wes’ stern stare.

Wes shot a glance over his shoulder at the open kitchen door. “Is it about the guy from your dreams?” he asked in a low voice.

Blaine swallowed and nodded.

Wes’ expression softened but he didn’t say anything, instead looked at Blaine expectantly, waiting for him to speak.

Blaine cleared his throat. “He- Uh, my parents…” He sighed. “I told my parents about Kurt and they flipped. I have to go back on treatment.”

Wes rubbed at a spot above his left eyebrow and let out a slow breath. “I know we’ve been over this, but you don’t have to do what your parents want you to do. They can’t force you to have treatment.”

Hopes of finding a simple solution to his problem rapidly fading away, Blaine looked at Wes wearily. “Wes, you know my stance on that.”

Closing his eyes for a moment, Wes nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He quickly straightened up, his eyes opening to reveal a brightened, more optimistic expression. “At least it’s only a year until you move away to college. You can’t tell me your perchance for obeying your parents’ every wish extends to long distance.”

Blaine shook his head glumly. “It’s not just that. Kurt and I have been planning to meet and he was going to come over here and visit for a few days, but there’s no way that can happen now – can you imagine what my parents would do?” He looked searchingly at Wes, clinging to the last vestiges of his hope with pleading hands. “Unless you can think of a way to keep Kurt’s visit a secret from them?”

Wes blinked at Blaine incredulously until his expression shifted to one of exasperation. “You haven’t told Kurt about this yet, have you?”

The last remaining dully glowing sparks of hope that Blaine had been clutching desperately to, fizzled out and died. Resignation and self-hatred settled in to replace it, making him want nothing more than to curl up in his bed and let the horrible facts and feelings eat away at him, like he deserved. Unable to do so, he instead shook his head forlornly at Wes.

“He doesn’t know your parents are terrified of your condition? That they hate everything about it and are desperately doing everything to get you cured?”

Feeling worse with each passing second, Blaine shook his head again. Tears prickled at the back of his eyes before welling up and gathering on the edges of his eyelids. His throat closed up with a tight thickness that made him swallow compulsively. He willed himself not to cry. He shouldn’t be the one getting upset; he was the one who had screwed up. If anyone should be crying it should be Kurt.

Wes’ brow furrowed in sympathy. “You have to tell him, Blaine. You can’t keep something like this from one of your friends, especially not one you have such a unique relationship with.” His eyes narrowed at the shift in expression on Blaine’s face. “You are friends with him – aren’t you?”

The memory of the kiss flashed through Blaine’s head and he swallowed hard, fighting against the tears still threatening to fall. He had to clear his throat several times before he was able to speak. “I- yes. Yes, we’re friends.”

Wes’ eyes searched his for a little longer, before he turned away and picked up the soda bottle again. “You have to tell him about all of this. You can’t keep postponing meeting him until you’ve moved out, or whatever you were thinking of doing. You have to tell him the truth; he’s bound to understand.”

Jaw tight, Blaine nodded stiffly.

“Thanks, Wes.” He forced a small smile in his direction.

Smiling more genuinely, Wes clapped him on the shoulder. “Any time.” He replaced the cap on the soda bottle and moved to put it in the fridge. “Now help me take this upstairs before everyone starts complaining about the lack of snacks.”

Over the next twenty-four hours, Blaine tried to think of the best way to explain everything to Kurt without it sounding like he was regretting their newfound relationship, or that he simply didn’t want to meet him in person. He spent almost an hour staring down at a blank message to Kurt on his phone, the tiny cursor blinking at him mockingly as he attempted to type what he needed to say into a text. Eventually, he gave up, deciding a text message was too impersonal for what he had to say. 

But during their phone call that night he still didn’t tell him, not wanting to burst Kurt’s happy, excited bubble. Instead, he continued to play along with planning his visit, feeling sicker by the minute as the guilt swamped his insides, corroding his stomach. He felt positively ill by the time the call ended and he went to bed, so much so that he seriously wondered whether he was going to be sick on a number of occasions. It was awful, but he knew he deserved it for his cowardice. 

The recovery dream he had that night when he finally fell asleep did very little to boost his mood or improve how he felt.

A week later and Blaine still hadn’t told Kurt.

The minute he stepped into the coffee shop and met up with Wes at their usual table, Wes knew he hadn’t done it. Wes took one look at Blaine’s face and his expression shifted from expectant to disappointed. Blaine hung his head in shame.

“And you said you were a bad liar,” Wes noted, effectively making Blaine feel even worse about his behaviour. 

“I tried to tell him,” Blaine protested weakly, his defence falling flat to his own ears.

Wes raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed. “Did you? I don’t think you could have tried that hard, Blaine.”

Feeling truly ashamed of himself, Blaine avoided Wes’ eyes and fidgeted with his coffee cup, picking at the plastic lid.

Wes sighed heavily. “I know why you’re holding back on this – I get it – but, you have to tell him, Blaine,” he said gently. “You can’t keep up this charade you’ve got going. You need to tell him, and you need to do it soon. You’re only making things worse by dragging it out.”

Swallowing, Blaine nodded. “I know.”

He felt Wes’ eyes on him, watching him silently for a moment.

“You’re going to meet me here at the same time tomorrow and you’re going to have told Kurt by then – okay?”

Jerking out of his shameful slump, Blaine lifted his head to meet Wes’ stern gaze. For a second or two he felt a flash of panic, a knee-jerk urge to protest or do something to avoid filling the request, but then understanding and acceptance took over. He needed to do this. He had to accept that he couldn’t please everyone; he had to tell Kurt the truth.

Blaine nodded again. “Okay.”

Wes searched his eyes for a moment, as if looking for any sign that Blaine may not keep his word. Apparently satisfied, he dipped his head once in a nod. “Good.”

When Blaine arrived home from the coffee shop later that afternoon, he spent the time until dinner thinking long and hard about how best to break the news to Kurt. He still stood by his earlier conclusion that a text message wasn’t the best way to do it, which left him with only one option: to tell him over the phone that night.

His plans were dashed not even an hour later when Kurt texted him to say that he couldn’t manage their phone call that night as he was seeing a late movie with friends. 

Blaine chewed on the inside of his cheek as he stared down at the text, feeling everything from relief at having a little more time until he had to tell him, and frustration that he couldn’t bite the bullet and get it done in the time he’d promised Wes. He went to bed that night with vague thoughts of calling Kurt the next morning. 

He expected his night to be restless as he fretted over the situation with Kurt, but he actually fell asleep rather quickly – and found himself sitting on a low wall on a long deserted street. Without even seeing him, he knew Kurt was there with him. Looking up, he found Kurt walking over to join him on the wall.

“Hi,” Kurt greeted, smiling brightly at him. His face fell when he took in Blaine’s strained and anxious expression. 

“What’s wrong? Has something happened to your family, or…?”

Blaine shook his head. “Everyone’s okay. I just- I have something to tell you.” He shifted on the wall until he was facing Kurt, looking directly into his concerned face. “I told my parents about you the other day and they weren’t happy. They’ve always been scared of my condition and how it will affect me in the future, so they’re pretty horrified by the thought of me travelling. They think it means my condition has got worse, that it’s affecting me more and putting me at a greater risk of a sleep coma.”

He paused to steel himself for revealing the worst part and Kurt exhaled heavily, looking sympathetic.

“Are they telling you to see a doctor again?” Kurt asked, his tone holding a note of familiarity, like he knew this response all too well.

“Yes – and they want me to go back on treatment and they have signed me up for a clinical trial.”

Kurt made a noise of distaste, his nose wrinkling up. 

“Clinical trials are the worst. Do you really want to go through all of that?”

“No,” Blaine sighed. “But I can’t exactly say no to my parents.”

There was a pregnant pause. Kurt’s expression shifted to one of confusion, his brow creasing into a frown. 

“That’s not the worst part.” Blaine cleared his throat nervously. “I’m sorry, Kurt, but there’s no way you can come over here to visit me now; my parents would freak out if you did and I hate to think how bad they’d become over doctor’s visits and treatment; they’d be unbearable. I’ve tried to think of a way you could still come without my parents knowing, but I just don’t think it would be possible any time soon. I’m so sorry.”

There was an even longer pause, and then Kurt said, “Okay, maybe some other time.” His voice was small, clipped, and his face had become stony, only his eyes betraying how upset he was. 

Blaine’s guilt worsened. He hated that he had to upset Kurt even more, but he knew he had to tell him everything now. He had to rip the Band-Aid off in one go; there was no sense in slowly peeling it off bit by bit.

“I- My parents are also not happy that I’m sharing dreams with another guy. They’ve never been completely comfortable with my sexuality and they wouldn’t hesitate to take away my phone and my computer if they knew I was in contact with you outside of dreams. I think they suspect I might be – they’ve become suspicious about who I’m talking to on the phone each night. I’ve been lying and saying it’s my friend, Wes, but… I don’t know how long they’ll accept that answer.” Blaine ran a trembling hand through his curly hair and heaved a sigh. “I think it’s best if we cut down on how often we talk to each other. Maybe we could reduce the phone calls to once a week? My parents always go out to dinner on Thursday night, so maybe then?”

While he had been speaking, he’d noticed Kurt’s jaw had been clenching and unclenching, like he was holding back the urge to say something. He had lowered his gaze early into Blaine’s explanation, so he couldn’t really tell what Kurt was thinking. From the set of his shoulders and the rigidity of his posture, Blaine knew he was upset.

After a tense moment, Kurt lifted his head, his eyes wide and pleading. “Can’t you continue lying and say you’re talking with people at the theater group or something? Or we could talk at a different time – earlier in the day or later at night when your parents are asleep,” he suggested somewhat desperately. There was something else forming behind Kurt’s eyes, something bigger than his unhappiness over Blaine wanting to reduce their daily phone calls, something that made Blaine’s stomach flood with fear and his throat tighten in panic.

“That still won’t work,” Blaine said weakly. “They’ll still find out the truth.”

A shadow passed over Kurt’s face and his cool expression screwed up into an angry scowl. He shot to his feet and waved his hands in agitation.

“And so what, Blaine?” he demanded, his voice loud and almost a growl. “They can’t stop you from taking to me and they sure as hell can’t stop you from sharing dreams with me.”

Blaine flinched at Kurt’s harsh tones. Fear and panic overrode all of his remaining guilt and caused tears to well up in his eyes and his face to scrunch with emotion.

“No,” Blaine croaked out. “But if they learn the truth they’ll push for more doctors, more drugs – they’ll think nothing of drugging me up.” He stared up into Kurt’s face, his eyes wide and pleading, willing him to see that he was being forced into doing this. He had been backed into a corner by his parents and this was the only way out.

“They see travelling as a slippery slope, a downhill slide into being trapped in a dream forever.” Blaine stood up and took a step towards Kurt, another bolt of fear shooting through him when Kurt stepped backwards away from him. “And I’ve never been good at lying,” he added in a choked voice. “They’ll find out. I can’t hide anything from anyone.”

The anger that had been flaring behind Kurt’s eyes had settled into a steady burn that Blaine found difficult to look at. Kurt’s jaw was clenched so tightly, cords of muscle stood out on his neck. His posture was stiff and unyielding. He stared unblinkingly at Blaine for a harrowing moment, before saying in a dangerously calm voice, “No, you can’t.”

The silence that followed had air so thick and heavy that Blaine found it difficult to breathe. Everything was spiralling, turning the view beyond Kurt into a featureless blur and intensifying his nausea. It was all going horribly, irreversibly wrong. Blaine felt as though his mind was still scrambling to catch up with where things had turned south. It had all happened so quickly. 

Feeling lost, Blaine stumbled forward and reached out for Kurt. Whether he wanted to cling to him or to placate him with a reassuring hand, he wasn’t sure, but he just needed to have Kurt accept his touch.

Kurt moved back out of his reach again, the skin around his eyes tight with strain. Blaine’s empty hand fell back to his side, his fingertips just brushing Kurt’s sleeve. Pain and panic flared through his chest.

“If you didn’t want to do this anymore you should have just said so,” Kurt said darkly. “I didn’t realize this all meant so little to you; that it was just something you dreamed about, that was gone when you woke up. Well I won’t bother you again, Blaine Anderson. If you see me in your dreams, don’t worry: I’ll be gone when you wake up.”


	11. Chapter 11

Blaine hated that he woke up the next morning. If ever there was a time when he would have embraced slipping into a dream coma, it was now. Waking up meant facing what had happened and being alone with his thoughts. It also meant all of the guilt, the regret, the self-hatred, the loss – it was all hitting him full force, rolling through him in an incessant series of debilitating waves. He wished he could just close his eyes and sink into the mindless abyss of one of his recovery dreams, but now that he was awake there was no chance of that happening. He was a coward to wish for it; he deserved this pain.

For a while he lay in bed and tried to pinpoint the exact moment it all went wrong. When he refused to lie for Kurt, when he didn’t tell Kurt that first night on the phone, when he told his parents about Kurt… He pushed these thoughts away. It didn’t matter, really. He’d screwed up and now he had to deal with the consequences. It was his entire fault.

Curling into a tight ball beneath his duvet, Blaine squeezed his eyes shut and tried desperately to block it all out: the look on Kurt’s face before he’d turned and walked away from him, the echo of Kurt’s voice severing the bond between them, the sharp pain of loss in his chest. It was all in vain. He had to suffer through his pain.

Sometime later he began vehemently blaming his parents, fuming over their hatred and fear of his condition, their desperate need for him to be cured, and their discomfort with his sexuality. If they had been as accepting and accommodating as Kurt’s family, this wouldn’t have happened. If they would let him make his own decisions and choose his own path in life, he and Kurt would still be together now.

But he was the one who didn’t have the courage to do something his parents may not like. He was the one who couldn’t bear the thought of not appeasing his parents.

It was a vicious cycle: the blame game. He went from blaming himself, to his parents, to Kurt for not seeing things from his perspective, and even to the bullies who had beat him unconscious outside a school dance, amplifying his parents’ concerns about his sexuality and fear of losing him to a world of unconsciousness. He went through them all in his head over and over again, pointing the finger at each of them and feeling everything from fury to helplessness, guilt to fear. No matter who he deemed responsible, no matter how much the burden of responsibility was shifted off of him, he never felt any better.

He forced himself out of bed eventually, resigned to the fact the he couldn’t avoid facing the day. It was only when he looked at his phone to check the time that he remembered he was supposed to meet Wes later. He thought about texting him to cancel, but knew that would never sit right with Wes. He would be over demanding to know what was wrong before an hour had passed. 

He thumbed over the screen of his phone to light it up again, hesitated, and then opened up his text messages. He swallowed as he looked at the messages from Kurt. Intuitively, he knew it would hurt if he read through those messages; he knew that. He knew that, and yet-

Heart thumping painfully, he opened the text conversation with Kurt and re-read the last message Kurt had sent him.

_‘I’m sure you will! I’ll call you tomorrow at the usual time. Sweet dreams :)’_

Blaine’s eyes filled with tears, blurring the words on the screen. There would be no phone call from Kurt tonight and no texts from him throughout the day. He’d be lucky if Kurt ever spoke to him again. They’d be spending the rest of their shared dreams avoiding one another, just like he’d feared. There would be no more sweet dreams for him.

He idly clicked on Kurt’s name, opening his contact details. He wondered what would happen if he called or messaged Kurt and tried to apologize once more, to try and salvage a respectable acquaintance at least. He wondered if Kurt would reply, ignore him, or block his number. He wondered if it would ever be possible to gain Kurt’s trust again.

Blinking against the burning in his eyes, Blaine clicked out of Kurt’s contact and placed his phone back on the nightstand. Even if there was a chance Kurt would forgive him, it wouldn’t be today; he had to give him time and space. It was the faintest possibility, the tiniest glimmer of hope, but it was enough to motivate him to get washed and dressed and to put on a brave face. He may not be good at lying, but he was good at hiding his feelings, especially when he was hurt. And with his face washed, the puffy redness around his eyes gone, and a smile on his face, who would know?

Wes knew.

It took him all of the few minutes of Blaine entering the coffee shop and getting his drink for Wes to realize it had all gone horribly wrong.

“Shit,” Wes muttered as Blaine dropped into the seat opposite him, his pleasant smile sliding from his face. “I’m guessing you told him, then.”

Blaine stared at the cup of coffee he didn’t particularly feel like drinking for a long moment, before he nodded jerkily.

“Shit,” Wes muttered again.

The coffee cup in front of him blurred and Blaine swallowed thickly, willing himself not to cry. He would not cry in front of the many customers packed into the coffee shop and the barista who had looked at him with mild concern when he’d accepted his drink from him. He would not.

He heard Wes pick up the waxed paper cup that held his drink and then set it back down on the table again. He seemed hesitant to ask Blaine about what had happened, yet he was clearly eager to know. Blaine didn’t know if talking about it would help, but he was sure this was one situation Wes couldn’t help him with. No one could help him fix this mess.

More for something to do with his hands than anything, Blaine took a sip of his coffee. The warm liquid hit his empty stomach, eliciting a small gurgling sound. He hadn’t been able to face eating breakfast that morning, or lunch, and with no one around to make him eat, he had left the house to meet Wes on an empty stomach. He felt so sick and downright awful that he didn’t even feel remotely hungry. 

“I told him everything in the dream we shared last night,” he said in a low, hollow voice. He didn’t raise his gaze from the coffee in his hands, but in his peripheral vision he saw Wes freeze and lean closer to hear him better.

“I was going to tell him on the phone earlier that evening, but he had to cancel our phone call. I was relieved when I met him in my dream; I hadn’t wanted to tell him over the phone. I told him my parents had learned that I had started travelling and explained why that scared them. He was sympathetic and understanding – I thought it would all be okay and that I’d been worrying for nothing.”

Feeling a little choked up, Blaine had to pause for a minute to get his emotions under control. Now that he was talking, it was a little easier to keep the words flowing, but the loss and self-disgust rose up in his throat, making it difficult for him to speak. Wes didn’t prompt him or start firing questions, but waited patiently for Blaine to continue.

“Then I told him about how they weren’t happy about me sharing dreams with another guy,” Blaine continued, his voice thick with emotion. “I told him he couldn’t come to visit and that we’d have to cut down on how much we communicated outside of dreams. I told him how my parents would react if they found out that he was more than just someone who was present in my dreams. He- uh…” Blaine had to swallow several times, blinking rapidly against the pressure of tears. “He wasn’t happy. He tried to suggest ways we could still communicate regularly, but I told him every time that it wouldn’t work. He got angry, accused me of not really caring about him, of just seeing him as someone I thought nothing of and forgot all about as soon as I woke up.” A rogue tear slipped down Blaine’s cheek and he swiped at it viciously. “He ended it between us, told me he didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.” Blaine’s lips trembled and he had to bite down hard on his bottom lip to prevent a sob from escaping.

Wes let out a long sigh, but unlike what was often the case after listening to Blaine recount something that had recently happened to him, it was a sigh of sympathy instead of exasperation.

“Shit,” he muttered again. He made a small angry noise. “Blaine, I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t provoked you into telling him…”

Finally raising his head to look at Wes’ anguished face, Blaine shook his head. 

“No, you were right yesterday: I couldn’t have kept this from him forever. It’s my fault for telling my parents in the first place, or for being too scared to not follow their wishes for once, or-” He broke off, desperately trying to swallow down the sobs bubbling up in his throat. The tears were from anger and frustration at himself as well as losing Kurt and talking about it made it harder to keep the emotions contained as they wanted to escape with the words.

Wes’ face twisted with pain as he watched Blaine struggle to keep in control of his emotions. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now, but if Kurt can’t accept your reasons for restricting your contact and isn’t willing to compromise, then he-”

"Don’t,” Blaine cut him off with a raised hand, screwing his eyes shut as if to block the sight of Wes speaking as well as the sound. Wes stopped talking immediately and though Blaine couldn’t see him, he knew his expression was now even more concerned. He knew Wes meant well and was only trying to make him feel better, but he just couldn’t handle such remarks at the moment.

He lowered his hand slowly and opened his eyes after taking several deep breaths. “I know you- I can’t-” He shook his head helplessly. “I was the one who couldn’t compromise,” he said instead. 

Wes’ frown deepened and Blaine took another sip of his coffee, avoiding his gaze. The drink he usually enjoyed left a bitter aftertaste on his tongue that didn’t seem to clear away no matter how many times he swallowed. 

The silence that had fallen between them lingered over the table for a good few minutes. Around them, people continued to talk and laugh, creating a low buzzing sound, as though they were all outside of some sort of bubble surrounding their little table. Blaine tried not to think about last night’s dream, but it kept playing out in his mind over and over again, like a broken record. He was reminded of another aspect of his condition that he sometimes disliked: he never failed to remember his dreams. 

He got so caught up in the memory of what may very well have been his last conversation with Kurt that he didn’t notice Wes trying to get his attention right away. With some effort he wrenched himself back to the present.

“Are you okay?” Wes asked sincerely, eyeing him worriedly. When Blaine simultaneously shrugged and nodded, he added, “It’s always difficult when the pain is fresh. You just need some time.”

Despite his scepticism about the last point, Blaine nodded again. Right now it was hard to believe that he would ever feel better about the relationship he’d ruined, especially since he would be reminded of it every time he saw Kurt in his dreams. They couldn’t leave each other’s lives as was the usual end result for a relationship that ended badly. How could he possibly put this behind him and move on?

Wes hesitated, seeming to deliberate over something. “He might come round, you know,” he said eventually. “He might think it through and decide to work with you.”

Blaine highly doubted it, but he shrugged anyway. “Maybe.”

“You had one argument, Blaine; couples argue all the time,” Wes pointed out rationally. “You just need to give him some space for a little while and then apologise and explain everything again.”

Blaine wasn’t convinced. “Couples can also break up after one argument, especially when it’s over something as big as this.” He shook his head, his forehead creasing into a deeper frown. “He thinks I don’t care about him and never want to meet him!”

Wes watched him contemplatively, his eyes full of concern. “Don’t give up on this so easily. If he means as much to you as you say, then you shouldn’t let this go after one fight.” When Blaine looked at him with pessimism and hopelessness, he added, “Fight to keep him, Blaine. Don’t let your parents be the reason you lose him.”

Blaine arrived home to an empty house. Despite this being a regular occurrence, he found the silence, the loneliness, to be more noticeable today. It felt like it was this sinister thing peering at him from around the corner like the imagined threat seen in the edge of vision in darkness. He needed noise to push it away – he needed the TV, music, voices – anything. If he let the silence be for too long it would sneak up on him and smother him.

He ran up to his room, making as much noise on the stairs as possible. There he turned on music, letting his iPod play whichever song he had been listening to last, and increased the volume until it filled the room and spilled into the hallway. He rummaged aimlessly through his closet and drawers, moving around a lot and making as much noise as he could, yet achieving nothing. When the weight pressing down on his chest had lifted enough for him to get enough air into his lungs to breathe properly, he stepped away from the closet and collapsed on his bed. The music was too loud; he reached over to turn it down. Now that it was over, he didn’t really know what had just happened. He wasn’t sure it was entirely to do with Kurt, either.

Wriggling on the bed, he tried to get comfortable enough to relax and enjoy the music. His phone was digging into him where it was placed in the back pocket of his pants. He lifted his hips up and pulled it out, moving to toss it to one side, and pausing.

The next thing he knew he was reading through all of the texts Kurt had sent him, working backwards from the most recent ones. Though he knew he shouldn’t be torturing himself by doing this, he couldn’t stop himself. Kurt was like the worst kind of drug to him.

He jumped when his phone pinged with a new text message, his pulse thumping loudly behind his ears. He scrambled to sit upright, his mouth dry and his limbs shaky with quivering muscles. 

This could be it. This could be Kurt. 

With trembling fingers, he opened up his messages and looked at the newest unread one. He had to re-read the name of the sender three times before it sank in. He sighed, his shoulders slumping. It wasn’t Kurt. The message was from the director of the theatre company, asking him if he could come to tomorrow’s rehearsal an hour earlier to work on one of the lead actress’ solos.

His heart sank as crushing disappointment swept through him. He had really thought it might have been Kurt that time. He hated himself for getting so worked up, for setting so much hope on Kurt getting in touch with him.

Letting out another heavy sigh, he replied to the text with an affirmation, and then tossed the phone to the other end of the bed where he wouldn’t be tempted to look at it. He needed to stop torturing himself by looking back at happier times and he needed to stop waiting on tenterhooks for a message that was never going to come. Kurt would probably never speak to him again. Kurt had said he wanted nothing more to do with him, and he seemed like someone who would keep his word.

Desperately needing a distraction, he went downstairs and sat at the piano. Running his fingers over the smooth keys was soothing and he soon started feeling calmer and less like a sensitive bomb that needed only the slightest trigger to set it off. He closed his eyes and played a few tunes, just anything that came into his head that he could play by touch alone. He couldn’t always remember the entirety of a song, but whenever he was unsure of the next bar of music he smoothly transitioned into a new song without pausing his playing. 

Playing like this enabled him to get completely lost in the music. Thoughts of Kurt were pushed to the deep recesses of his mind by the concentration, skill, and memory required to play. It was soothing: the peace of closed eyes, the smooth familiarity of the keys, and the loveliness of the music. He could feel the tension leaving his muscles at the break from the strain and intense emotions. In spite of his closed eyes it was the most he’d paid attention to what was happening outside of his own head since the dream.

The blissful peace didn’t last for long. He heard the front door open and his mom’s high heels on the wooden floors.

“Oh good, you’re here,” she said.

Reluctantly, Blaine stopped playing and opened his eyes. He turned on the stool to see his mom stretch over to place her keys in the designated box on the hall table, before looking back into the small music room.

“I wanted to talk to you about your treatment.” She held up her laptop as if in explanation and then walked away, the sound of her heels disappearing into the kitchen.

With a wistful look at his piano, Blaine lowered the cover over the keys and then followed his mother into the kitchen.

She was leaning against the island counter, her laptop open in front of her, and her finger moving over the mousepad. Blaine stood at the opposite side of the counter from her, rested his hands on its cool surface, and waited. 

“I got an email through today about your clinical trial,” his mom explained, still clicking around on the computer. “It explains more about it and – here.” She spun the laptop around and pushed it towards him so he could read the email open on the screen. Blaine scanned it unenthusiastically. It said he had to go and see one of the researchers conducting the trial in two weeks’ time where they would tell him more about the drug and confirm his eligibility. 

“It says the drug they’re testing is a sort of sedative that dampens some of your brain activity while you sleep.” His mom tapped a finger next to the relevant paragraph of the email. “An improvement on one of the drugs you’ve taken before.”

Blaine nodded mutely, unable to respond in any other way.

His mom smiled, clicked out of the email, and closed the lid of her laptop. 

“Now,” she began, fixing Blaine with an intent look. “At your appointment with Dr. Lewis tomorrow you should tell her that you’ve signed up for this trial so she knows you’re doing it, but since it will be a little while until you start taking the trial drug, you should ask if there’s something else you could take in the meantime.” She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “Just in case there is something that could help for now. After all, alleviating the symptoms slightly has to be better than no improvement at all.”

Blaine’s feeling of helpless dread, which had been steadily rising since his mom announced she wanted to talk treatment with him, peaked. The overwhelming fragility from earlier returned. He’d forgotten he had a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. 

“I’m supposed to still be at rehearsal tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have to leave early,” he bemoaned.

His mom nodded sternly. “Yes, you will. Your health is far more important than playing piano for some kiddo group. You make sure you’re at your appointment on time.”

Blaine arrived at the clinic for his appointment the next day in a bad mood. The day had started off badly when he got out of bed after barely getting any sleep. He’d lain awake for hours the night before, worrying about what would happen if he saw Kurt, and then when he had finally fallen asleep, he’d experienced an exhausting dream where he’d been running through an endless maze of corridors, searching for an elusive exit. 

He’d arrived at the theatre early, as promised, only to have to play the same few bars of music over and over again for the struggling soloist. The rehearsal itself had been busy and he felt bad for leaving early, and to top it all off he kept obsessively checking his phone for a message from Kurt, despite the deep pang of disappointment he felt each time he found none. He almost screamed with agitation when the receptionist informed him Dr. Lewis was running a bit behind schedule and he may have to wait up to twenty minutes, in a room full of coughing patients, nonetheless. 

To try and regain some control over his rampant emotions, Blaine made himself read the flyers and posters pinned to a nearby noticeboard. His fingers itched to check his phone again, but he resisted, even going so far as to sit on his hands. It took every ounce of his concentration to remain calm and not give in to temptation. He felt a small burst of triumph when he was called through to Dr. Lewis’ office without having wavered once.

Dr. Lewis smiled at him as she showed him into her office. 

“It’s nice to see you again, Blaine. How are you?”

She closed the door and moved to sit down at her desk. Blaine copied her.

“I’m good,” he lied. “Enjoying summer vacation.”

She nodded. “That’s about the only thing I miss from my school days. You’ll probably never get that much vacation again – you should make the most of it.” She rested her arms on the desk, her expression becoming more scrutinising as she looked at him critically. “How have you been without any treatment? Have you noticed any change in your sleep at all?”

Blaine exhaled slowly, choosing his response carefully. It crossed his mind to tell her everything: about Kurt, the travelling, and the mess they were in now. There was a chance she could help – perhaps she knew of someone who specialised in the relationships of travellers who could help? But telling her still seemed just as wrong as it had done on the day after his first shared dream. He and Kurt may be having problems and they may be affecting his sleep, but telling his doctor about this still felt as though he would be betraying something sacred. Even if he had already ruined that sacred something.

“I think it was good for me to take a break from being on treatment, but I’d like to go back on it,” Blaine told her. He laced his fingers together to hide the trembling. “I’d like to try something I’ve never had before, if that’s possible.”

Dr. Lewis eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. “Is there any particular reason for changing your mind?”

Blaine shook his head. “No, not really.” He shifted self-consciously under the doctor’s gaze, hoping she wouldn’t see through his façade. “The treatment was driving me a little crazy before, but now I’ve had a break from that I want to get back to trying to cure this.”

A stray thought entered his head and he wondered if those were his parent’s words or if his own feelings about his condition had reverted back to what they used to be now that he and Kurt were no longer on speaking terms. He pushed the thought aside. He and Kurt had only had one argument, there was a chance, even if it was only a slim one, that they could recover from this. While it didn’t seem likely now, they could put this whole mess behind them and move on.

Dr. Lewis eyed him closely for a little longer, before looking away to make a note on her computer.

“Okay, well there isn’t anything new, I’m afraid. However, since you didn’t try that last drug and music combination for the recommended eight weeks, I think it might be best if you try that again.”

Blaine nodded. It didn’t matter to him either way; it was just to keep his parents happy.

“I’ve signed up for a clinical trial and I’m going to see if I’m eligible to participate in two weeks.” He handed her a printout of the email describing the trial and she scanned it quickly.

“So you just want to take something until this starts?” she asked. At Blaine’s affirmation, she set the paper down and made another note on her computer. “That should be fine. Just let them know you are currently taking this medication.”

She handed him a script for the pills, he lied about still having the CD of relaxing music, and she told him to let her know if he got signed to the trial.

On the drive home, Blaine wondered about how Dr. Lewis had never asked him about travelling. It was quite common among oneironauts, yet she’d never mentioned it except during his first meeting with her when she checked to see if he was aware of it. He wondered if this was common practice among doctors who specialised in oneironautics, or if she just trusted him enough to tell her if he ever travelled. He would’ve felt guilty about keeping it a secret had he not known the consequences of revealing it. He’d already suffered enough of those. 

 

~ * ~

 

Kurt woke up in a rage. There was no blissful period of forgetfulness where reality hadn’t penetrated his sleepy mind yet. He woke up and he knew straight away.

He wanted to cry. He wanted to pound his fists against the mattress. He wanted to throw something at the wall. He had never been so angry, so hurt, so betrayed before. What made it worse was that he hadn’t seen it coming, he’d had no inclination of Blaine not feeling the same way as him. Everything had been perfect between them – until it wasn’t.

Tears burned in his eyes and throat, he clenched his jaw and fought to hold them back. He wouldn’t cry over Blaine, he wasn’t worth that. 

The room started to blur. He climbed out of bed to pace the floor, hoping movement would help him stay in control. He strode up and down a stretch of carpet between his closet and the window, glaring ahead of him as he did so.

And to think he’d spent all that time planning a trip that was never going to happen. He scoffed derisively as he spun around in front of the window and strode back towards his closet. It probably had nothing to do with Blaine’s parents at all; he just hadn’t wanted to meet up with him. He was only supposed to be someone in Blaine’s dreams, nothing more.

He had been such a gullible idiot to have been so taken with Blaine. He’d spent hours talking to him and thinking about him, all for it to be thrown back in his face. He had fantasized about being in New York with him next year, daydreamed about happily ever after. He had clearly been completely alone in feeling this way. He couldn’t believe he had misread Blaine so entirely. Rachel had been right; he shouldn’t have gotten so involved with him.

Reaching his closet again, Kurt swerved over to his desk. The surface of it was littered with scrawled plans and printouts of flight schedules from all the evenings he’d sat on his laptop and researched the trip. Breathing heavily through his nose, he snatched the papers up, crumpled it all into a misshapen ball, and threw it in the trash as hard as he could. If only he could crumple up his feelings and memories of Blaine and throw them in the trash, too. 

“Kurt? Breakfast is out!”

Resisting the urge to kick at his trash can, Kurt turned away to call out a reply to his dad.

“I’ll be down in a minute!”

The last thing he felt like doing was eating breakfast with his family, but he couldn’t avoid it without inciting an onslaught of questions on what was wrong. He couldn’t have that.

He tried to school his features into that of composed normalcy and by the time he had dressed and joined his dad and stepmom in the kitchen, he felt like he would be able to eat something without breaking down.

He was able to pick at his food in silence as his dad and stepmom discussed their plans for the day. As he ate, he thought some more about telling them what had happened with Blaine.

Telling them outright, right there and then, would give him the chance to rage and vent about the situation, and getting it all off his chest might help him feel better. But he knew how they would react. Aside from anger and sympathy, they would be worried about him and how he would cope with continuing to see Blaine in his dreams. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want them to worry, especially not his dad when he was not long out of the hospital from heart problems.

Scooping up a spoonful of soggy cereal, he cursed himself for being so naïve and optimistic in telling them about Blaine and the trip to visit him. They had been as hesitant about it as Rachel had, and it had all come crashing down on him like they’d feared. They’d all warned him and he hadn’t listened. He’d been so confident in his relationship with Blaine that he’d brushed off concerns from his family and best friend. And now look what had happened.

Wrinkling his nose, he swallowed a mouthful of cereal and washed it down with some coffee. He laid his spoon in his bowl and pushed it aside – he couldn’t eat anymore.

He knew he would have to tell them what had happened eventually, but he couldn’t handle the inevitable lecture on how they were right and the smug, ‘I told you so’ looks. He couldn’t take their concern just yet, not when he hadn’t even got the whole mess straightened out in his own head yet. When they asked him about Blaine and the trip he would say something had come up and they’d had to cancel it. Unlike Blaine, he could lie for the sake of others. 

With the pain of betrayal still fresh and raw, Kurt threw himself into staying busy in order to be distracted from it all. He spent as much time as possible either out with his friends or working with his dad in the garage. He went shopping at the mall with Rachel to help her pick out some new clothes that didn’t make her look like a six-year-old raised by a cat-loving grandma, he played video games with Sam and increased his previously non-existent skill of shooting virtual characters, and he spent time with other members of the Glee club, seeing movies or meeting for coffee. Through all of this Blaine was a constant, nagging thought in the back of his mind, like a little splinter he couldn’t dislodge, sending out bursts of pain every now and then. While distracting himself only worked somewhat, it was better than the alternative.

One afternoon he found himself suddenly alone in the house for a few hours after Mercedes, one of his Glee club friends, cancelled their coffee date at the last minute. With his distraction gone and nothing to keep him busy, he soon found himself curled up with his back against his bed, hugging his knees and crying openly as he wondered how he’d gone from feeling like he had everything to feeling like he wasn’t worthy of anything in the space of one night.

Exactly one week after the fallout with Blaine, Kurt’s anger had faded enough for him to be able to think back on how it had all fallen apart. Looking back, he couldn’t recall any time when Blaine had obviously been lying or had appeared unhappy with communicating outside of dreams. Blaine had always seemed to love being able to talk as much as possible, it had been his idea to start their nightly phone calls, and he had seemed pretty apologetic, but, Kurt thought bitterly, perhaps he was just a good actor and was going along with it to keep the peace in their dreams.

Anything was possible. He didn’t really know Blaine, after all. He could have been lying to him since they’d met.

Kurt’s scowl melted as he backed his car out of the driveway and started heading to Rachel’s house. She was hosting a karaoke party that evening that she’d been planning and talking up for weeks. While it may not live up to Rachel’s descriptions, he was looking forward to a carefree night with his friends nonetheless. If singing pop songs with his friends, eating junk food, and laughing at how serious Rachel took karaoke didn’t lift his mood then he didn’t know what could. It was a night to forget about Blaine and look at what he had instead of lamenting what he’d lost.

He braked to a stop at a red light and waited for it to change, drumming his fingers rhythmically on the steering wheel. Thumping music and roaring laughter cut through the peaceful hum of his engine as another car pulled up alongside him. He glanced over at it and immediately turned his face away again as he tensed up in his seat. Mark was behind the wheel of the car full of his friends, most of whom had been there when Mark had thrown coffee over him a few weeks ago.

Swallowing, Kurt tightened his grip on the steering wheel and stared hard at the stop light, willing it to turn green. He knew without a doubt in his mind that if Mark or any of his friends recognised him they would go out of their way to taunt him in some way. They would stalk him to Rachel’s house, pull off dangerous road manoeuvres around him, and maybe even damage his car in some way. Either way, he knew they’d do their best to frighten him.

With his heart pounding and a sickening knot tightening in his stomach, he turned his face away more, keeping watch on the lights in his peripheral vision. His foot trembled where it hovered over the gas pedal, ready to stomp on it as soon as the lights changed. He cringed as loud hooting and shouting followed by a round of laughter sounded above the music. He squeezed the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles turning bone white, looking as though they were about to burst through his skin.

The light flicked to green and he pressed on the gas, shooting away from the lights far quicker than he would ordinarily. Not trusting his ability to remain innocuous, he turned off the main road far earlier than he ideally wanted to and took the longer, but bully-free route to Rachel’s. 

His heart rate gradually slowed the more distance he put between himself and Mark’s car, his grip on the steering wheel loosening. When he finally turned onto Rachel’s street and slowed to a crawl to try and find a parking spot, realisation hit him so suddenly he came to a complete stop in the middle of the road.

Bullies had made him dread being awake and going about his life some days and now he no longer looked forward to going to sleep in case Blaine was there. He was dreading going to sleep because of his dreams, just as he had hoped would never happen. Unless he and Blaine could sort things out and be civil about their broken relationship, his dreams would never again be the safe haven he relied upon.


	12. Chapter 12

“Kurt – please.”

Kurt kept walking, deliberately ignoring the voice calling after him and trying not to react in any way.

“Just let me explain, Kurt – please,” Blaine begged again, his voice sounding choked.

Kurt continued walking. The landscape appeared ahead of him as he walked, shifting seamlessly from a well-maintained park to a school sports hall. He tried to pretend the person hurrying after him was as unremarkable as the changing scenery.

“Kurt…”

The temptation to turn around was strong and once or twice he very nearly did. He wanted to look Blaine in the eye and listen to what he had to say, to hear his reasoning and be convinced to change his mind on him. He desperately wanted to hear Blaine say something pivotal that would turn this whole mess around and put things right again. But he didn’t honestly believe that would happen. He didn’t think anything Blaine had to say would change things for the better. He was sure Blaine would only repeat what he’d said last time, and Kurt wasn’t going to change his stance on that, not when it was clear he was putting more of himself into their relationship than Blaine was. Blaine had all but admitted their relationship meant very little to him and Kurt didn’t want to hear his pathetic apologies. Blaine had been lying to him, he was hurt, and he wasn’t really ready to try and smooth things over.

As the sports hall became a city street, Kurt walked. Blaine’s footsteps continued to follow him, the sound changing with Kurt’s as they walked from grass to wood to concrete. Every now and then Blaine would call out his name or say something to try and convince him to stop, turn around, and listen to him. Kurt wasn’t sure why he didn’t just say what he wanted to, regardless of whether he was facing him. Though Blaine perhaps felt his words wouldn’t be as sincere if said to Kurt’s back.

Eventually, Blaine stopped calling after him and just his footsteps followed Kurt as he walked on. Kurt didn’t know where he was walking to, but the destination wasn’t a concern of his. He needed to walk to avoid Blaine, so that’s what he was doing. He would keep walking for as long as he needed to.

Sometime later, Kurt became aware that he could no longer hear any footsteps but his own. Cautiously, he glanced fleetingly over his shoulder, only to see nobody behind him. He stopped and spun around.

An empty stretch of concrete pathway led to a misty white horizon. Blaine was nowhere to be seen. Despite his decision to ignore him and his attempts at making amends, the fact that Blaine had given up made Kurt feel worse. Deep down, beyond the part of him convinced Blaine didn’t care about him, he really wanted Blaine to fight for him. He’d wanted Blaine to keep begging for his forgiveness, to never be satisfied until he’d done absolutely everything he possibly could to fight for him. He’d wanted Blaine to run after him, grab him by the arm, and make him listen. He’d wanted him to scream after him with tears clinging to his cheeks, to tell Kurt how sorry and wrong he was in the most emotional and dramatic of ways. He’d wanted something – something more than just a few feeble attempts to make him stop and listen while trailing behind him like a shadow. But perhaps Blaine didn’t care about him enough for more than that.

The rage at Blaine and his own stupidity reared up inside him once more.

His anger filtered into his wakefulness. Kurt was so pissed off the next morning that he abandoned his usual moisturizing regime midway through after his trembling hand failed to unscrew a lid off one of his jars of cream. Growling in frustration, he shoved the jar away from him, yanked on some clothes, and stomped downstairs, muttering under his breath.

“All those times I told myself I wouldn’t be so naïve and I act like a fucking idiot over the first guy who shows an interest in me.”

He shoved bread into the toaster and slammed on the lever to put the slices down to toast.

“I can’t be with you because of my parents,” Kurt sneered, mocking Blaine’s voice, twisting his smooth tones into dull knives. He snorted inelegantly as he pulled a plate out of the cupboard. “What a load of bullshit. What kind of reasoning is that? Even fucking Romeo and Juliet managed.”

His snarling and muttering eventually slowed to a stop as he continued to make breakfast. He ranted inside his head instead, bitterly going over how Blaine’s lack of effort to make amends provided proof to his theory that he’d never cared about him. He was making himself feel worse by going over and over it, replaying the worst parts of their argument and repeating his own horrible conclusions, but he couldn’t help it. It was like a broken tooth he couldn’t stop poking with his tongue.

He banged a coffee mug down on the counter and yanked open the fridge door, muttering under his breath again as he rooted around for cream for his coffee and the raspberry jelly. He slammed the fridge door shut with a nudge from his hip, and jumped when his dad was revealed to be standing on the other side of it.

“Dad! I didn’t hear you come in.”

Heart racing from being startled, Kurt turned his back on his dad and set the cream and jelly on the counter. “Do you want some breakfast?”

He heard the rustle of his dad’s clothing and saw him appear in his peripheral vision, leaning against the counter, watching him. Kurt fumbled with the lid on the jar of jelly.

His dad ignored his question, still focused on Kurt’s skittish behavior. “I can see why,” he remarked. “What’s all the banging around about?”

To hide his face from his dad’s scrupulous gaze, Kurt pulled open the cutlery drawer and busied himself getting out a knife and spoon.

“Nothing in particular,” he answered as offhandedly as he could. “Just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, I guess.” He knew as soon as he said it that his dad wouldn’t buy it.

His dad made a small noise of disbelief.

Kurt stared fixedly at the toaster, waiting for it to pop. It felt like his dad’s gaze was burning into the side of his face and Kurt fidgeted under the intensity of it, waiting with bated breath for his dad to push for answers.

The toast popped up, the coffee finished brewing, and still his dad said nothing. Kurt tried to think of an acceptable reason he could give, tried to justify giving said reason, and then tried to justify continuing to lie to his dad. He spread his toast and poured himself and his dad coffee, arguing it all out in his head.

Handing his dad his mug of coffee, he carried his toast and coffee over to the table and sat down. His dad joined him, still fixing Kurt with a considering stare.

Kurt took a sip of his coffee, not wanting to start on his toast whilst waiting for an onslaught of questions. Just as he swallowed a mouthful, his dad let out a heavy sigh.

“Kurt, what is really bothering you?” his dad asked. “You know we don’t lie to each other.”

Kurt shifted guiltily in his seat and took another hasty gulp of coffee. He’d been lying to his dad quite a lot recently: about Blaine and the trip to visit him, about school and the bullying. He didn’t like lying to his dad, it made him feel especially uncomfortable and guilty, but he felt it had been for the best.

Ever since his mom had died he and his dad had done their best to tell each other the truth at all times. It was something that had helped bring them closer together and helped them through such a rough time. Being honest with each other had supported them through the difficulties of being a family torn apart by death and then struggling through a diagnosis of a rare condition – it’s what helped Kurt gain the courage to come out as gay to his dad. But he’d needed to lie. He’d only been doing it to protect him from the stress and worry, to stop him from ending up back in hospital. Despite the guilt, Kurt still stood by his decision. He’d done the right thing. Remembering his dad lying pale-faced and linked up to drips and machines in a hospital bed was enough to convince him of that.

Setting his coffee mug carefully down on the table, Kurt looked across at his dad’s expectant face. He couldn’t tell him everything, but it was time he told him about Blaine. The truth behind that wasn’t so easy to hide.

“It’s Blaine,” he began, hating the wave of emotion that hit him from just saying his name. “We had a bit of an argument – or more than that, really. It turns out our relationship – friendship,” he scrambled to clarify, “-didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me. He said he no longer wanted to communicate with me outside of our dreams. So,” Kurt spread his hands helplessly, “the trip is off. You no longer need to worry about me going to Massachusetts to visit someone I barely know.”

His dad’s brow furrowed in concern and something that may have been anger or disappointment. There was an air of weariness about him as he rubbed a hand down over his eyes. More to give him something to do than he was hungry, Kurt took a bite of toast and chewed it, tasting nothing.

“So he just cut off all contact from you?” his dad asked, his voice sounding heavy, like he was speaking on a sigh.

Kurt shrugged. “He said we couldn’t talk on the phone anymore and that we couldn’t meet.” He directed his reply to the kitchen table, tracing a finger around the rim of his mug as he spoke. “Then we argued, and we haven’t spoken since.”

“Did he say why he suddenly couldn’t be in contact with you?”

Kurt shrugged again, his slumped shoulders barely lifting. “Something to do with his parents.” He scowled darkly and removed his finger from his mug. He snatched up his toast and took a vicious bite. “He was obviously lying. He’s been lying to me since the day we met.”

His dad watched him for a long moment, his brow still wrinkled in concern, his eyes clouded with thought. Kurt took a large gulp of coffee, swallowing the hot liquid so quickly it almost made him splutter. This wasn’t how he’d expected this conversation to go. He’d anticipated worry and rage from his dad with a side dose of ‘I told you so’. He hadn’t expected him to look at it so rationally, to check to make sure Kurt wasn’t jumping to conclusions or blowing things out of proportion. Though he knew his dad was only trying to help, he couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed, as though his dad was taking Blaine’s side. Rationally, he knew he was being ridiculous, but his anger made the ridiculous seem far more likely. 

Eventually, his dad nodded slowly. 

“What are you going to do about your dreams? You can’t go on being pissed off at each other when you’re possibly going to share dreams for the rest of your lives.”

“It may not be for the rest of our lives,” Kurt muttered into his coffee mug. He was getting more annoyed by the minute and wished he could get up and leave the conversation. Now his dad knew about this, he’d opened himself up to not just one discussion about it, but many more over the following weeks, months, even years. His dad would now want to know about how each dream he shared with Blaine went and whether they’d managed to work things out between them or if they’d reached an in passé where they could co-inhabit dreams in peace. He’d worried about the stress on his dad from telling him about this, but he’d never thought about the strain on himself. He wasn’t all too sure he’d done the right thing.

“No,” his dad agreed, having heard his mutter. “But you don’t know that for sure. You can’t be sharing dreams with someone you’re arguing with, it isn’t healthy.”

Kurt slammed his coffee mug down on the table hard enough that some splashed out of the cup onto the table. “I’m not backing down just because we’re forced to be in each other’s presence. He lied to me and basically said he wanted nothing more to do with me. I can’t simply forgive and forget.”

His dad surveyed him over his coffee mug for long enough that Kurt started to feel uncomfortable again. He reached for his toast and resumed eating it. 

“I’m not saying that you should forget what Blaine did and pretend that he never hurt you, but just remember that you two don’t, and never will be able to have, an ordinary relationship. Holding a grudge isn’t a smart idea.”

Not knowing what to say to this, Kurt fidgeted with his last bite of toast, tapping it against his plate instead of eating it.

“Think about the future when you decide where you want to go with Blaine,” his dad added gravely. 

Unable to stomach it, Kurt tossed his last piece of toast onto his plate. His dad was right about Blaine, he knew that. His dad was thinking about it logically, but he didn’t know the full story – the full extent of his relationship with Blaine, the full extent of his hurt. As much as he knew his dad was right, as much as he understood fixing things with Blaine was for the best, for everyone involved, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d been hurt, he’d been rejected – he couldn’t simply brush himself off and shake hands with Blaine after that. The sting from his wounds had only just begun to dull. Though he knew he should do it, he just couldn’t make amends with Blaine. 

 

~ * ~

“Okay, Mr. Anderson, you’re good to enrol as a participant in the trial.” The doctor looked up from his clipboard and smiled at him. “Do you have any questions?”

A few popped into Blaine’s head, all of them sarcastic jibes about whether the drug they were trialling would actually be effective, but he cleared them from his mind as soon as they appeared. He shook his head. “No, I think I understand everything,” he answered politely. 

“Great!” The doctor handed him a large envelope from on top of his desk. “If you do have any questions, everything should be explained on the information sheets for you in here. There are also letters explaining the trial for you to give to your GP and oneironautist.”

Nodding, Blaine stood up to leave, clutching the envelope in his hand. He tried to continue smiling at the doctor, but struggled as his memories and fears of clinical trials flashed through his head as if they were on a reel of film. 

“We’ll see you in a week for the start of the trial,” the doctor said, also getting to his feet.

Shaking the doctor’s hand, Blaine thanked him, before leaving the office. He retraced his earlier steps along a short corridor until he emerged in a small waiting area where his mom was sitting reading a magazine. She looked up at the sound of his approaching footsteps and shoved her magazine into her purse. 

“How did it go?” she asked, getting to her feet. “What did the doctor say? Are you on the trial?” Her eyes rapidly searched his face, looking for the answers before he said them. 

“I’ve been enrolled in the trial,” Blaine told her robotically. “It starts next week.”

A wide, delighted smile spread across his mom’s face. “That’s wonderful! I can’t wait to tell your father; he’ll be so relieved.” She stood for a moment and smiled brightly, excitedly at Blaine. Blaine did his best to smile back, to look as pleased with the outcome as she was, but it was hard. A gloomy, forbidding cloud was hanging over him and he couldn’t see much through its darkness.

His mom clasped her hands together. “We were so lucky to get you on such a hot trial at the last minute,” she enthused. “They’re predicting great things from it; the preclinical work was so promising. It’s going to make waves in the field of oneironautics.”

Blaine nodded his head in agreement, though he thought little of her words. His mom had said the exact same thing about every other clinical trial he’d participated in and none of them had made any difference to his life. While the chance that this trial could be different was there, Blaine couldn’t think the same as his mother. He’d seen too many therapies achieve nothing.

His mom began to lead the way out of the hospital and Blaine followed, hurrying to keep up with her.

“This could be the elusive cure, Blaine,” his mom continued, her voice full of optimism. “You could be one of the first people in the world to have your oneironautism treated!”

Pain throbbed through Blaine at the thought; a quick pulse shooting through his chest and stomach. It was quickly stifled by rational thought. If he was treated by this test drug then he would most likely never see Kurt again. It was his reflex reaction to baulk at the thought, to feel a panicked burst of pain, but really it was what he needed. Kurt had ended it between them and had purposefully ignored every attempt he’d made to apologise and set things right again. If Kurt wouldn’t hear him out, if he wanted to stick to his words and keep his distance, then it would be for the best if he was treated. Seeing and feeling Kurt in his dreams but being shunned and ignored by him was pain Blaine didn’t want to experience for the rest of his life. Getting himself rid of that part of his life would be the best thing he could do. Really, he needed a cure.

He swallowed, his throat tight. “It could be,” he agreed as they stepped out through the automatic doors and headed for the parking lot. 

Almost as if to reinforce his understanding that the treatment was what he needed, he shared another painful dream with Kurt two days before the trial was due to start. The moment he arrived at the beachside path and known Kurt was also there, he’d been filled with desperation. This was his last chance to turn it all around before he started on the medication that just may change everything. 

He looked around for Kurt and found him a short distance away, standing on the path watching the ocean. He looked around briefly at Blaine’s approach, before turning his back on him and walking away. One look at him, just seeing Kurt’s stony expression once, was enough to extinguish any tiny spark of hope Blaine had left for making amends. Kurt just wasn’t interested in his apology. 

Desperate, he made one last futile attempt to talk to him, to make him listen, but with hard eyes and a cool expression, Kurt ignored him and Blaine gave up. Slumped against the thick trunk of a tree, he gave in to doing the trial and fulfilling his parent’s wishes.

He woke up with tears in his eyes, feeling empty and heartbroken. Reality hit him like a hard slap to the face. He didn’t put too much stock in the clinical trials – there was a high chance it would be unsuccessful, leaving him still stuck sharing dreams with a hostile Kurt. Could they really continue to ignore each other and get by on avoiding each other’s eye? There would have to be a breaking point eventually, a time when they couldn’t take it any longer; he was already struggling to handle it. There had to be another way. Kurt had to see they needed to reach some sort of compromise. 

Leaning over to reach his nightstand, Blaine snatched up his phone. He opened up his messages and sent one last desperate message to Kurt, apologizing again and pleading him to respond so they could talk about their future as dream partners.

He waited all day, and the next day, and the next. He checked his phone obsessively, even clicking into his received messages to check his notifications hadn’t screwed up. Kurt didn’t reply.

He spent the night before the beginning of the trial in a sleep lab at the hospital. Spending the night in one of these labs was one of the worst parts of taking part in a trial. He had to try and sleep in an uncomfortable, unfamiliar bed hooked up to several machines by a tangle of wires. When he did eventually fall asleep, he dreamed lucidly, but Kurt was not there with him, for which he was glad. In spite of their current issues, he still didn’t want Kurt involved in anything to do with his doctors. As they took off the EEG pads from his head the next morning and he started to fill out the questionnaire on the night’s dream, he wondered if Kurt’s presence in his dream would alter the readings from the machines the researchers pored over. He wondered if his heart raced and skipped on the monitors as it did in the dreams when he saw Kurt’s face, if the activity in his brain changed when he gazed hopelessly at Kurt’s retreating back. He wondered how much of everything that had happened in their dreams had been little more than imagination.

“Okay, Blaine,” one of the doctors conducting the trial said, scribbling one final thing on his clipboard. “That’s all the pre-trial testing completed.” He set his notes down and picked up a box of pills and a piece of paper from the table beside him and handed them to Blaine. Blaine looked down at the items in his hands: the box of medication, white and featureless except for the sticker with his name and instructions on how and when to take the pills, and another sheet of information. He set them down in his lap and looked back up at the doctor.

The doctor smiled apologetically. “I know we’re bombarding you with pages of information to read, but it’s so you know what to do if there’s a problem or you have a question.” He indicated the page in Blaine’s lap. “Any potential side effects are listed there along with instructions on what to do if you experience them. There may be some we don’t know of yet, so if you experience anything out of the ordinary let us know straight away. Your schedule for follow-up appointments throughout the trial is also listed there.” The doctor waited until Blaine had nodded his assent, before adding, “Any questions?”

Blaine shook his head. “No, I think everything’s been covered.”

“Well in that case we’ll see you in a few weeks for the first follow-up.”

Blaine left the hospital and took his time walking to his car. To his relief both of his parents had been unable to get out of work to accompany him to the appointment. He’d thought it was silly of them to come to an appointment that followed an overnight stay in the hospital, but they had disagreed. They’d be eager to hear all about it and praise their good fortune for getting him on the trial that evening. His family treated a clinical trial like it was some thrilling event he was partaking in.

Unlocking the doors to his car, he got in and sat for a while, staring down at the box of experimental medication. A feeling of recklessness sparked through him.

The main string tying him to the perception of his condition as a unique, special part of him that enhanced his life, that it wasn’t an illness, that he didn’t desperately need to cure it, had been cut. Kurt didn’t want anything to do with him anymore and he found it hard to see any positives in his condition now. If his lucid dreaming was making him miserable, then why shouldn’t he do what he could to dull it? He didn’t have anything to lose in taking some drugs that may alter how he dreamed.

He ran his eyes over the list of potential side effects, recognising some of them from medicines he’d taken in the past. They didn’t worry him anymore; it was better experiencing them than the torture of being in Kurt’s cold presence. If they numbed the pain, it was worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta, BleedingHeartsBeFree!


End file.
